


Time and Again

by Beshter



Series: Timeless [1]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Iron Man 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:01:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 39
Words: 164,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23741944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beshter/pseuds/Beshter
Summary: When an insane man who claims he can travel through time appears out of nowhere, Peggy Carter agrees to go with him to save the world, little expecting the strange new life she'd be stepping into on the other side.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Peggy Carter, Peggy Carter & Natasha Romanov, Peggy Carter & Nick Fury, Peggy Carter & Phil Coulson, Peggy Carter & Scott Lang, Peggy Carter & Sharon Carter, Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Series: Timeless [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1710199
Comments: 228
Kudos: 414





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have been sitting on this story for two years, since before Endgame. While I'm still plodding along with "Interstitials" and fully intend to finish it, this one has been sitting there and I poke at it every so often. With the quarantine we are all in now and being stuck inside, I've resisted it and updated bits of it and decided to pull the trigger.
> 
> Needless to say, this story is completely AU and is intended to be, my own version of "What If". I was intrigued by what if Peggy Carter found herself in the future do to some crazy means and had to adapt much as Steve did, and here it is. Not the first story of this nature by any stretch of the imagination, but it's my take on it and I'm having fun with it. Peggy has always struck me as a character who was ahead of her time - like so many women in that era were - and I've always been most interested in what someone like that would do in our time. What would be the challenges and what would be the same old thing? How would she deal with the insanity of the future and all it has to hold? In short, this is an exercise for me in playing around with a person from the past - not Steve - going to the future and seeing what wonders there are to behold. So while it's not original...it's my take!
> 
> There is a bit of hand waving in terms of time travel as laid out in Endgame, so apologies for those Mac truck size holes, but oye, does time travel get confusing!

Peggy Carter was a woman of common sense or at least she liked to believe she was. She had a cool, rational mind and a keen intellect, one that until recently had gone greatly unappreciated by the vast majority of her colleagues and peers. Still, it had been recognized enough by Chester Phillips and Howard Stark to place her in charge of SHIELD, the new organization formed by the three of them out of the ashes of the SSR with the desire to create an information and investigation network outside the bounds of any one government, one that would work for the mutual benefit of them all. They wouldn’t have asked her if they felt her slow-witted or indecisive, unable to know her own mind and trust her own reason. But if they knew it right now, knew the turmoil she found herself in, the fear and panic that filled her, the desperation as she stood rooted to the spot, helpless with indecision, they might have reconsidered.

“So?”

Peggy barely blinked at the simple question, so caught up was she in the situation as a whole. There she stood, overlooking lower Manhattan from an opulent apartment, the cold breeze off the Hudson River chilling what little blood was left in her body. There sat - well, kneeled, as best he could with one good leg - Daniel Sousa, his earnest, handsome face looking hopeful in the glow of the lights burning from Howard’s party beyond, as a band played some romantic number, the title of which was escaping her in the midst of her shock. And in the center of it all, twinkling in the darkness, was a diamond on a ring. Not a large one, no. One of those would have been outrageous to afford and impractical to wear, and anyone who knew her would know she would never favor it. But there it was, a ring and a question and she was supposed to answer. How was she supposed to answer?

Daniel wavered on the spot on his one good knee, a hint of concern finally flickering into his dark eyes. “Earth to Peggy! I’ve never known you not to have words.”

Oh, she had those moments. He had just never seen her have one. When she did find them, they were idiotic in the extreme, thick on her tongue. “It’s...a ring.”

“That it is,” he chuckled ruefully, though quietly. Her lack of enthusiasm was clearly starting to worry him. “I know, nothing fancy, nothing like your first one I imagine, but still I like that it was simple and…”

“Daniel,” she finally gasped, wishing he wasn’t so endearingly earnest and sweetly sincere. She wished they weren’t standing outside of Howard’s glittering party filled with people more famous than anyone she normally rubbed elbows with in her day-to-day life. She wished it wasn’t New Years Eve, that she wasn’t overlooking the whole of New York, and that this wasn’t such a grand backdrop for this. Most of all, she wished she didn’t have to break Daniel Sousa’s very kind heart.

He knew, of course he did, simply by the fact she hadn’t jumped in glee and said yes from the offing. She probably had it writ all over her face like an idiot, and she found her cheeks burning as he lowered the velvet covered box with it’s single, pinpoint of diamond, glittering like one of the cold, distant stars above. Daniel was never an idiot, and she could see heartbreak already, cracking on the edges of his rueful smile.

“I suppose it was a bit much, wasn’t it?” Whether he was discussing the setting, the gesture, or the hope of having her say yes, she wasn’t sure. Aching guilt rose with the tears in her eyes as she watched him close the box with a single snap.

“Daniel, I’m so sorry,” she whispered through a throat tight with tears. “I am sorry, I didn’t...it’s just that…”

“No, I’m sorry,” he was busy tucking the offending jewelry into his coat pockets, avoiding looking at her. “You know, I shouldn’t have just sprung it on you like that.”

“It’s just that I…”

“No need to explain, Peggy.” He sighed, locking his prosthetic knee as he attempted to arrange his crutch to rise. Out of instinct, Peggy lurched forward to help, but he jerked away, perhaps a bit more violently than he meant to.

“I’m sorry.” She snatched her hand back, though she wasn’t sure if she was apologizing for daring to try and help him when he was already down or for rejecting the proposal so sweetly offered. Certainly, she had apologized more in the last two minutes than she had in years and she felt awkward and unsteady as she watched him struggle to his feet, wishing he had never tried to do it in the first place. If he hadn’t, he’d not be wobbling before her, looking as if he wished the marbled floor of Howard’s balcony would swallow him whole.

“You know, Stark tried to warn me,” he sighed, leaning heavily on his crutch, staring at the shiny tips of his shoes. “Man has a new girl on his arm every minute, I didn’t figure he knew anything about dames, but he knew you.”

Bless, Howard, she thought sadly. “There is a part of me that wants to say yes, Daniel, but…”

“Don’t!” The word broke out, ragged and sharp, Daniel’s expression crumpling for mere moments before it smoothed out into a regretful smile. “Don’t kick a fellow when he’s down.”

She bit her lip hard, teeth digging into tender flesh. Anything she might say in that moment would be trite, so she resisted as he straightened, shaking his dark head to look back towards the dancers inside, the swinging music, the warmth and light of the party.

“I knew it was a long shot.” A wry smile twisted his lips as he stared inside. “I mean, trying to hold on to you is like trying to catch fire - even if you succeeded, it would likely burn you up. I had thought maybe I could. Maybe that was my pride talking, that if you could ever like a crippled guy like me, obviously I had nothing to fear.”

“I do like you, Daniel!” The protest broke through despite herself. She never wanted him to believe she didn’t.

“I know,” he turned glittering eyes to her. “But there is a world of difference between ‘like a lot’ and “love,” and we both know that. I’d hoped you’d love me enough to want to settle down, build a life.”

“Settling down?” The cold chilled her skin, but she held her ground. “What does that mean for you, exactly? Buying a house in the suburbs, me building a home for our children while you go off to the office, whiling away my days with domestic business, waiting for you to come home and meet you with a cocktail and a kiss?”

They had never discussed it, not even once. It hadn’t occurred to her to discuss it. She could tell that it hadn’t occurred to him either, the idea of what “settling down” meant to someone like him and someone like her. 

Still, he tried to put a brave face on it. “We both know that would never be the case with you.”

“So what would that life look like?”

He understood what she was asking. “I wouldn’t ask you to leave SHIELD, Peggy, that’s your baby, your brainchild. It’s important to you.”

“It is. It’s not that I don’t want a family, to build a life with someone, I just don’t want to have to give up one for the other.”

“Do you think I’d ask you to do that?”

She shivered in the cold. “If you had the chance to further your career, to have someone really recognize your work, would you take it?”

Dawning realization hit him. “Yeah, I’d want to.”

“And what if it were cross-purposes to SHIELD and my position in it?”

“We could work around that…”

“What if I was on assignment somewhere?” She had to ask the question, stark as it was. “What if I went into a dangerous area or on a mission no one else could handle and you were left to wait at home and worry? What if I had to spend nights on end at work to help manage a crisis? It’s not as simple as just accepting a career, Daniel, you’d have to accept what comes with that.”

“And you don’t think I could?”

“Honestly,” she sighed, rubbing her arms, trying to get heat into them. “I don’t know. Perhaps you could. Perhaps it’s just me who doesn’t want to settle yet.”

It was a miserable answer and she hated giving it. She cared for Daniel, so very much, and perhaps in a different place and time in her life, she might have said yes. Tonight, however…

His free hand shoved itself into the pocket where she knew the box was tucked. “We always had the worst sort of timing, didn’t we?”

If there was one running theme through Peggy’s life, poor timing in her romances had to be it.

“You have to be freezing,” he exclaimed, more as a way to cover up the pained silence that fell. “Let’s get you inside, maybe get a drink to warm you up.”

He held out his right arm to her, the free one not used to hold him up. Without thought, she rushed in, wrapping chilled arms around his neck, hiding her tears as she brushed a kiss on his cheek before pulling away to look up at him sadly. He didn’t say anything more, simply pressed a brief kiss to her forehead before she turned towards the gaiety within. Despite the composure she tried to pull together as she stumbled in ahead of Daniel, the heat from all the bodies hit her, the dancing couples and drunken laughter from over by the bar catching her overwrought nerves and leaving them reeling. Howard was in his element, holding court, surrounded by beautiful women and more than a few men, mostly the Howling Commandos, now transferred over to work with SHIELD and all flocking to their former compatriot. Like as not it was mostly because of all the women hanging around him and the hope that perhaps they could poach one or two of them for themselves. A slow tune played from the live band, couples swayed on the floor, a careful choreography of bodies. The bittersweet song being crooned by the gorgeous woman in red made her heart ache and her head pound. The glitter of confetti and champagne, the joy and promise of a new year, it all seemed to ring a little hollow as to her surprise tears slipped quietly down her cheeks.

“Peggy?” Daniel’s voice was gruff and alarmed beside her.

“I have to go.” She didn’t look at him, didn’t dare to as she disengaged from his arm, swiping ineffectually at her face, trying to hide the hurt and embarrassment from the mad swirl of conflicting emotions she was feeling. “I’m sorry, Daniel, for all of it, but…”

What else could she say?

“Please, tell Howard I wasn’t feeling well. I’ll give him a ring tomorrow.” She tried to put a bright face on it but really it was more a pained grimace of a smile.

Daniel didn’t protest, but he did look concerned. “At least let me call you a cab, make sure you get home all right.”

“I’ll be fine.” Honestly, the cold outside would soothe the ache and guilt that burned like fire through her. “I’m not so far away, I can manage.”

Daniel didn’t look so convinced. “Peggy, I’m….”

“Don’t!” Peggy snapped the word, harsh, trying to soften it with a smile. “I know, I do, it’s just...don’t be sorry. Please don’t! I don’t want you to ever be sorry for this.”

She meant that with every fiber of her heart. That didn’t precisely make any of it better, though.

“Who could ever be sorry they fell in love with you, Peggy?” His soft half smile was so endearing.

Honestly, Peggy could think of a few people at the moment. “I’m not anyone any more special than any other woman.”

Daniel’s chuckle said he didn’t believe her.

“Let me get your coat.” With gentlemanly courtliness he hobbled off to the waiting attendant for the simple wool coat that clashed with her long, cobalt blue velvet gown. She’d worn it expecting it to be a night of celebrations. SHIELD was getting off the ground, despite the dire gloom that had been predicted when she was named its director. What had been a dream just a year ago was a reality. The legacy Peggy had envisioned, an organization that could protect the world from all of its threats, was going to be a reality. She had felt giddy in the moment...triumphant. Now the weight of the world settled like the coat Daniel placed on her shoulders.

“You sure you’ll be all right?”

“Yes,” she sighed, shooting him one last smile. “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you in the office tomorrow.”

With that she rushed out of the party, chased by the swirl of music and laughter and Daniel Sousa’s sad smile. She didn’t stop till she was out on the street, the cold crispness of night cutting through her tears as she attempted to find a cab, any cab to hail at this time of night. It was so close to the witching hour when the new year would start, better finding a needle in a haystack than an open cab in New York city this night. She waved at more than a few who had their lights out, ignoring the woman in an elegant dress and heels as she trudged through the growing flurries. A sorry situation she’d gotten herself into. She should have let Daniel help her call one, or perhaps finagled one of Howard’s drivers, even Mr. Jarvis to take her home. Instead she allowed her pride and guilt drag her outside, sulking in a stew of her own making.

Peggy had no one to blame but herself. She had known, Howard had warned her that whether she liked it or not, Daniel was becoming more serious in his affections. Peggy had brushed it off, believing she didn’t have time for serious romantic entanglements. There was far too much to do, frankly, too much at stake. She had known his feelings, but she had hoped to put it off indefinitely...perhaps forever. How selfish had that been?

Her impractical shoes scraped against the snow-dusted pavement, nylon a poor choice to ensure any sort of warmth. Pulling the lapels of her coat more firmly around her throat, she contemplated another attempt at a taxi home, eyeing the darkened street for a flash of yellow in the distance. It would serve her right to freeze out of her utter ridiculousness of her own pride. Sighing in frustration, she contemplated what could possibly be open on New Years Eve at this time of night in this part of town to warm up in, perhaps even a phone booth to call Mr. Jarvis and beg for indulgence despite her own idiocy. 

Before she could ponder her decision beyond how to politely grovel and explain her predicament, behind her in the alley cans crashed and banged as if something had plowed into them. Metal screeched and scraped against concrete and brick and someone cursed, loudly. Perhaps not an all together unusual event in New York in general, especially no on New Years Eve, but one that caught her attention and took it off of the sad state of her current predicament. She paused at the alley, peering into the darkness beyond, knowing dressed as she was wandering down there to look was perhaps even stupider than storming out of Howard’s part in nothing more than heels and a gown on a snowy night. 

Well, if she was going to freeze to death on New Years Eve in New York, she might as well investigate something.

She discreetly reached into her handbag, pulling out the weapon she had there, concealing it in the fold of her coat as she peeked, gingerly, around the frosted brick. In the darkness she couldn’t see much, but she could hear the scrape of aluminum against concrete and the sound of a man groaning and muttering, complaining loudly about something they had landed in. Carefully, she edged around the corner, peering into the black, making out the shape of a person carefully rising out of the mess. There was a single light in the alley, and it flickered on something silvery - perhaps a helmet - glinting in the weak, yellowish glow. What she could make out of the figure’s clothing had all the makings of a suit or uniform, or at least appeared to be, and not the type people would simply wear down the street. What it was, she wasn’t particularly sure. Maybe they were drunk who had stumbled in there on their way home from a fancy dress event. Perhaps it was far more nefarious, a burglar out taking advantage of a night of celebration where everyone was out in order to alleviate some poor person of their belongings. 

Whatever the case, Peggy thought it better to be safe than sorry. Before the figure could straighten to turn to her, her weapon was out and trained on the shadow as it staggered around, groaning, before facing her. It took a full minute, however, before it noticed her gun pointed right at its middle. 

“I’d suggest that if you don’t want to have an unexpected trip to the hospital in the next few minutes that you stay where you are and explain why it is that you're loitering about in dark alleys dressed like that on a night when so many people are not at home.”

The silhouette stilled, hands up in the darkness. It didn’t speak, however, but she could just make out the helmet had eye holes and they stared at her from a face that looked like something out of a science fiction film. Her heart leaped in her throat as her finger tightened, ever so slightly on the trigger. “Who are you?”

A voice from inside, cautious and male, spoke carefully. “Can I just move my hands just a little?”

She eyed him suspiciously as she nodded, barely perceptible, watching sudden movements. The man lowered his hands as a sudden metallic, gear-like noise sounded and the helmet that had been on his head retracted, leaving the slightly bemused and utterly terrified face a dark haired man staring down the barrel of her weapon.

“Um...hi! My name is Scott!”

She didn’t lower her gun a centimeter. “Are you one of Howard’s men, then, sent to save me from my own idiocy?”

“Howard? No, not Howard, I don’t know Howard.”

Judging from the helmet that just disappeared he had to know Howard - or he was a spy for someone else. “Then who do you work for?”

“Um, lately?”

Her patience was wearing thin. “Unless you really like having a bullet in your face.”

Several painful and confusing thoughts seemed to coalesce in his expression all at once. “That’s a bit hard to explain…”

“I’m a highly intelligent woman. Try me.”

He shrugged in a sheepish sort of way before squaring his shoulders as if expecting to be shot. “My name is Scott Lang and I’ve come from the future. You’re Peggy Carter and I need to get you to come with me!" 

Peggy shifted the gun in her hand only slightly. "And why on earth would I do something that foolish?"

He gulped as he stared down the barrel still pointed directly at him. "Because...I need you to help me save the world!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy makes a fateful decision.

Whatever kind of madman Scott Lang was, he could clearly put a lot of food away. Peggy eyed the scattered plates and dishes between herself and the man on the table in their quiet booth, wondering where in the world he put it all. He ate nearly as much as Steve post-serum, and with far more enthusiasm as he slowly savored a banana cream pie with the sort of bliss she showed for good English chocolate.

“Ahhh...ahhh man, this is the good stuff. Yeah!” He sighed heavily as he shook his head, crumpling into the aqua vinyl seat with a groan. “Man, this pie puts Marie Callendar’s to shame!”

Peggy had no idea who this Marie was, nor did she care, she was long past over Lang’s theatrics. “I promised you dinner in exchange for an explanation. So far you’ve only managed to eat me out of house and home and carry on obscenely about the pie.”

“Seriously, take a bite of this pie, you’d be obscene about it too!”

Peggy seriously doubted that. “I’ve had the pie here many times.”

“Lucky! They don’t have stuff like this in my time.” He shook his head, scooping another mouthful of yellowish custard and cream as he sagged with the pleasure of whatever the pie was doing to him. Peggy wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

“It reminds me of this place over in Oakland my grandpa took me to all the time that was a kitschy diner, kinda like this. Had the best turkey open-faced sandwiches and meatloaf, and when we were all done it was a slice of pie as big as your head, made from scratch. They just don’t make pies like they used to.” He paused, frowning, replaying his words. “I guess they don’t make pies like they do now in my time is what I’m saying.”

“And what time is that, Mr. Lang?” Her words snapped with her impatience.

“I’m from 2018.” He rattled off the number matter-of-factly, as if meeting someone from the future was a normal thing for people. “Seriously, this crust…”

Peggy snagged the plate from under his poetic waxing, setting it on the other side of the table as Lang stared at it, forlornly. “Pie later, after I’ve had answers. You mean you are trying to tell me you are from 70 years in the future?”

“Yes.” Realizing he couldn’t avoid it, he set down his fork and instead picked up his cup of coffee. “The 21st century.”

He didn’t seem mad as he said it. In fact, he seemed perfectly earnest, dark eyes begging her to believe him. She’d seen many a spy and suspect look less convincing under one of her interrogations, but none of them had sounded nearly as barking mad as this man. The future? Honestly? 

“Do you expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t know how else to convince you without taking you there and that’s what I’m trying to do.”

“How?”

“How to take you there, or how I got here?”

“Both.” She crossed her arms along the tabletop. “I assume you didn’t just blink your eyes and end up here.”

“No.” He finally owned, straightening up and leaning towards her, his voice lowering as he glanced around the practically empty coffee house. “How much do you know about quantum physics?”

“Enough to know that what they were playing at in New Mexico was dangerous enough, but beyond that, perhaps not enough to explain how you ended up 70 years in the past.” She thought of Jason Wilkes and Whitney Frost and decided not to try and explain that.

“Right, okay, so on the quantum level, you know there are atoms and things smaller than atoms even, subatomic particles. Once you get that small in nature, things get...a little weird.”

Lang reached down and tapped the buckle of the belt on his ridiculous looking suit, one that had raised more than a few eyebrows on their walk to the diner. Thankfully, most seemed to assume it was just fancy dress for the evening and didn’t question it.

“This here is a regulator, it allows me to expand or shrink the space between all the subatomic particles that make me up. I can use it to grow really huge. Did it once too! Did like, I don’t know, 65 feet, but I wouldn’t recommend it. You get that big and then you can’t get enough oxygen and then you are passing out in the middle of San Francisco Bay like a giant, beached whale. But you can also shrink down. If you shrink small enough, you can go subatomic, become so small you enter into quantum space, and once you are there, there are all these strange things; holes between the dimensions where reality gets fuzzy, time vortices, places that will swallow you, suck you in and deposit you in another era.”

This all sounded like madness, like something out of those silly magazines that she had seen more than a few of the SSR boys read at their desks when they should have been filing the reports she was saddled with. “And you are telling me you ended up in one by accident and somehow found the perfect time and place to find me and tell me I had to save the world?”

She had him and Lang knew it. “Well, actually, I didn’t come here first. I went to the future first. Five years, to be exact, and that was on accident. I had no idea where I’d end up. But from there, yeah, I have a device. That’s my GPS, I guess you can call it, the way I figure out where I need to go.”

Lang reached for one of his gloves, the ones that matched the ridiculous suit. Wrapped around one of them was a bit of plastic that looked more like a watch than anything else. “I set it to the date and location and it gets me there, essentially.”

“And you meant to come here? To Manhattan, 1948?”

“New Year’s Eve, yes.” He nodded, delighted with himself. “I admit I wasn’t sure it would work myself till I saw you standing there with a gun in my face.”

“And so you’ve found me.” She saluted him briefly with her coffee cup, sipping at it as she eyed him over the rim. “So, you want to take me back with you to the future?”

This made Lang snicker for a brief moment for unexplainable reasons. “Yes.”

“Why?”

Here he grimaced, sliding down into his seat as he regarded her, thoughts clearly whizzing in his brain. Likely, the next chain in the yarn he was spinning for her as he went along, or perhaps another thread of whatever radio show he had been listening to that inspired all of this madness. She waited, fingers wrapped around her mug tapping only somewhat patiently as she waited for the next bit of ridiculousness to fall out of his mouth.

“Because we need to save it, to fix it, and I think you are the only one who can manage it.”

“Again I ask, why?”

He sighed, hands scrubbing over his face as he tipped his head towards the ceiling. “I can tell you, but it sounds really crazy.”

“More crazy than you travelling through time to end up in a garbage can?”

He seemed to concede this point. “Okay, but if I tell you this, you have to promise to listen and just accept it. Don’t get all weird, stalk away, get insulted.”

“And you presume I would?”

“Well, frankly, I might if I were you.”

“I might surprise you.” She found she often did when it came to other people and their presumptions. Still, Lang didn’t look convinced. He pushed himself up, squaring his shoulders, looking her straight in the eye.

“All right, I need you to prevent the split up of the Avengers.” He pronounced it with the sort of grave urgency one might explain an assasination plot or a bomb in a building.

“Now, that wasn’t so bad, was it? What in the world is an ‘avenger’?” It sounded like some sort of horrible film serial they would show at the cinemas on Saturday mornings for children.

“The Avengers! They are a team of superheroes, Earth’s mightiest ones, as a matter of fact...or they were.”

“Until they split up?”

“Yeah.” Lang picked up his own mug, glaring in its depths rather than drinking it. “There was a difference of opinion about the direction. See, the Avengers are meant to be the group you call when a situation gets bad...really bad. When it’s too big for one government or army to deal with, they are the ones who put a stop to it. Individually they are heroes who do all sorts of great things, but together, they can stop whole armies.”

Frankly, to Peggy, that sounded dangerous. “Who controls them?”

“See, that’s the rub. Up until recently, it was SHIELD, but...well, let’s just say some stuff happens and now they are independent contractors. I don’t know how or if SHIELD is tied in anymore. They were privately funded, kept running operations, and tried to do some real good in a world where crazy things seem to be happening all the time. But then, there was this situation with a country in Eastern Europe. Ever hear of Sokovia?”

“Small country, currently occupied by the Soviets?”

“That’s the one! Though the political situation changes quite a bit by my time. The Soviets left behind a political mess and the Avengers tried to help, and well...they may have broken the country...permanently.”

She didn’t even want to know how that worked. “What do you mean by broken?”

Lang squirmed here, looking anywhere but at her skeptical frown. “There was an unforeseen series of events that ended up with the capital city having a giant hole carved out of it?”

This is what she got for investigating a noise rather than hailing a cab. “I don’t believe this…”

“I told you it was hard to believe! I wasn’t lying!”

“Well if you aren’t, you’re loony” She was regretting that she ever listened to the man in the first place.’’

“You promised you’d listen.”

“I didn’t promise to agree to stories.”

He sighed, throwing up his hands. “You’re right. And you know, I knew you were smart, everyone says so. Of course you wouldn’t believe this.”

“And you tried anyway?”

“Because I had to!” Here the humor and self-assuredness he’d displayed up to this point fell away and desperation rose to the fore instead. “Do you think I’d do something as insane as traveling through time to just be insulted and told I was crazy?”

Frankly, she didn’t know. A dull ache settled between her eyes that she rubbed fretfully as she thought longingly of her small apartment and a hot bath. “Let us say you aren’t mad. What in the world does a team of crazed heroes with fantastic abilities have to do with me today?”

“Because Sokovia means the world takes notice. It means that people who think they know better than anyone else how to do things try to tell the Avengers what to do. It means that they split up over it. They take sides, one is arguing that the Avengers need more control and oversight so that they can mitigate civilian casualties and prevent another Sokovia. The other side wants less control so they can do what they need to do without signing off in triplicate and going through a sub-committee hearing to just go and help people in need who are being attacked or are in danger. And they couldn’t agree on it, so they split in two, everyone picking a side.”

Peggy could truly see both sides of an argument like that. A truly sticky situation indeed, if any of it were true. “And what could I possibly add to any of these arguments?”

Here Lang grimaced, hunching in on himself as he pushed his mug absently across the table. “It’s not what you can add, though I think you are brilliant and could add a lot to the argument. It’s more of what you can do to help mitigate it. At the end, it’s not just about two sides of an argument, it’s two personalities in our leadership, two guys who are larger than life, but who are so convinced they are right that they risk everything because they can’t agree. That’s where I need you, specifically, because frankly, you are the only person in all of history who I know could talk sense to the both of them - who they would even listen to - and make them see reason.”

“And who are these men that the only possible answer to your problem is me?”

He blinked a long moment, staring at her. “Remember what I said about listening?”

“I’ve listened this far.”

He nodded, squaring his shoulders and taking a deep breath. “Tony Stark and...Steve Rogers.”

Whatever Peggy had expected to hear, that wasn’t it. “Excuse me?” 

The bottom of her stomach fell out and landed somewhere at her feet as her fingers gripped the ceramic in her hands more tightly than she thought possible. Till now she’d thought this strange man with his outrageous outfit and even more wild story merely an addled stranger, mixed up in all the alcohol and revelry. Now to suggest something so cruel, he either had to be utterly insane or completely clueless.

“I know, I know, it’s crazy, but you’ve come along this far.”

She found her tongue thick, tears prickling as she struggled to string sounds into something coherent. “Steve Rogers is dead.”

“No, he’s not. He’s just...sleeping.” Lang muttered lamely, expecting some sort of reaction from her that she clearly wasn’t giving. “Look, I told you it was crazy, but it’s true. Steve Rogers isn’t dead. He never was. He crash landed somewhere between Greenland and Canada and it took nearly 70 years to find him. They thawed him out and he was as good as new! Even got back to defending the Earth not a month later, it was amazing! He seriously hadn’t aged a day from when you knew him. It was like seeing the old news reels come to life!”

Peggy could only stare at him mutely, her skin feeling hot and cold all at the same time. “Sleeping? In the ice?”

“Yeah! It took them forever to find the plane, I guess, and it was on accident. I know Tony’s dad tried for years, but it was some Russian trawler looking for oil and there he was.”

Steve...was alive? She could feel the telltale prickle as she tried to find her voice. He was alive, somewhere out there. He could be found! He could come home.

“Do..do you know where he’s at?” She managed to finally get words out beyond the tears that clogged her throat, her lips trembling with the effort.

Lang seemed to know instantly her implication. “No...see, yeah, no, we can’t just thaw him out now, because we need him in the future!”

“And we don’t need him now?” She needed him now. Didn’t this fool understand that? Unless, of course, this was all some sort of horrible lie and he was making it all up, a cruel joke at her broken heart’s expense.

Lang looked somewhat helpless at that. “I mean...I don’t know if you do need him now or you don’t. The world managed to survive without him for 70 years in my time and nothing exploded. But we absolutely need him in the future.”

“What, for your beloved Avengers? The ones who seem to make a habit out of destroying small, European countries?”

This argument clearly wasn’t one he had anticipated as he panicked, running fevered fingers through his dark hair, making it stand on end. “Look, you’re right, okay, but there is something coming, something...we need the Avengers in on it, we need them together, or else…”

He trailed off, eyes wide in his frantic face.

“What? You said it yourself, your own government wants to restrict them because they see them as a danger.”

“Else Thanos will come and kill off half the known universe in a single snap of his fingers.”

Peggy was a bit tired with being confused by this odd fellow and was regretting playing along with this every minute that passed. “The known...universe?”

Lang only nodded, far too agitated to care about her own distress. “Thanos is this alien guy, giant, purple, that’s all I got out of Tony. Basically like Hitler, only he thinks the best thing for the universe is killing half of all of it to help it thrive or something. A whacked out, crazy idea, except he does it. The Avengers try to stop it, but they had split up by that point, no one was talking to anyone else. Tony was off one place, Cap was off another, and all the bad guys had to do was divide and conquer. Thanos gets what he needs and boom, half the universe is gone with it. Just like that, random people standing in line for coffee, driving their cars, flying airplanes, all gone...dust...as if they never even existed.

Whether or not Peggy bought a word of it, clearly he thought it was true. The horror, grief and hurt was real enough. He stared in between them, unseeing, the sort of thousand-yard stare of all of those who had lost someone suddenly, processing the grief of their existence just being ripped away. 

“Who did you lose,” she asked, gently

He blinked at her with red-rimmed eyes as he pulled down a zipper on his suit. Reaching inside, he pulled out a device, a slim contraption made of metal and glass. He tapped the dark top and a light came on, multicolored and glowing, swiping fingers across it as tiny images flew past a stunning, color photograph of himself with a small girl. Peggy stared at the device as her brain tried to make sense of it and what it was. Howard would kill to get his hands on something like that. He stopped, tapping a finger against one of the small images. It popped up on the glass, unveiling another picture filled with tiny images. Again he swiped down with his thumb, looking through what looked like tiny photograph, all bright and colored, like real life.

“What is that?” She couldn’t help her childish curiosity, despite everything else fantastical that had happened that evening.

Lang only looked mildly surprised at her confusion and interest. “It’s a cell phone, technically, though honestly it’s a mini-computer I can hold in my hand.”

“A computer?” She had worked at Bletchley Park in the early days and even well into her time with the SSR and was well aware of the large, cumbersome data machines that everyone kept throwing money at. Those looked nothing like the device he was manipulating so adroitly in front of her now.

“Yeah it does a ton of things you likely never imagined a computer could do and it also makes phone calls to people, too.”

“Without wires?” This boggled her mind.

“The future is a crazy place.” He smiled sadly as he tapped on the glass. A picture enlarged on it, one of a group of smiling people in full, lifelike color at a camera. They were in a park somewhere.

“This is my family, more or less, the family I made for myself at least.” The sad longing on his face spoke to just how much he cared for them. “This was taken just a month ago, or at least a month ago for me, I guess. It was just a day in the park.”

The grief gave him pause as he sat looking at it for long, quiet moments. “The woman down there in the corner is my ex-wife, Maggie and her husband, Jim. He’s a cop, but an alright guy. That’s Janet and Hank. They invented the suit and the technology. He was the first Ant-Man.”

“Ant-Man?” She assumed that must be his hero name, much as Steve used Captain America. Peggy had always thought Steve’s moniker sounded silly and this Hank's was worse, like something one found in a comic book.

Lang blushed. “Well, yeah, Janet said she married him for his looks, not for his skill at naming things.” He chuckled as he enlarged the photo again to zoom onto the face of the woman sitting in front of the older couple and very close to him, her chin tucked over his right shoulder, smiling softly. “That’s their daughter, Hope. She...well, she and I are a thing, I guess. We’ve sort of had our ups and downs the last few years. She’s brilliant, like her parents. Me, I’m sort of the classic impulsive gunslinger who tends to act first and then think about it all later. But, you know, I really do love her. Like, for real love her, not just because she washes my clothes and brings me my favorite pizza for dinner.”

His simple earnestness, if clumsy, was sweetly endearing, achingly so as he slid his fingers along the glass to refocus the picture on the little girl sitting in front of him. She was the same girl from the picture before, older now, somewhere between a young child and budding woman. She had on a black cap with a stylized orange “SF” on the front, grinning up at the camera as Lang wrapped her close to him.

“Speaking of loves, this one is the love of my life! Cassie is eleven, a mile smarter than I will ever be and way more brave. You’d like her! She wants to be a superhero someday, just like Captain America...just like me.”

He trailed off, something breaking softly as he studied his daughter's face. “I was in the quantum realm, just for a moment. I was doing a thing, we were trying to help someone. They were supposed to pull me right back out. They never answered. I waited there...I don’t know, four or five hours. When something finally pulled me out again, it was five years later. That’s how I found out what happened. They all disappeared. Hope, Hank, Janet...most of them, really. Cassie didn’t, though. She was alive in the future. Just her and her mom, grieving over everyone alone...”

He trailed off, looking at the glowing face of the girl in front of him. “Overnight, the whole world changed for her, for everyone, and there wasn’t a thing anyone could do to stop it. By the time the Avengers even figured out what was going on it was too late and that was that.”

The story was so fabulous, so out there, and she didn’t want to believe any of it. But there was something so heartbreakingly earnest as he spoke of his daughter, of a future growing up without her father or her family, of millions of lives snuffed out in an instant. It didn’t sound as far fetched to her as it might have seemed.

“How did you get here and why did you ever think of it?”

“Luck, really. “ Lang’s smile was grim as he tapped the “phone” and the photo went away. He tucked it back inside his suit. “The reason that everything happened was because the Avengers failed. And at the heart of why the Avengers failed was the fact they were broken, split up after the Sokovia Accords. But, really, it went back even further, to when they formed up. They were this misfit bunch to begin with, sort of thrown together by an invasion and SHIELD. Cap hadn’t been awake out of the ice but a few weeks and Stark was off showboating everywhere he could in his suit. The rest had other things they did with their lives. But the heart and soul were those two, and they never got on. Never knew why, not like I knew them well. I know Hank had a special hate on for Starks, something about Howard Stark trying to steal his technology, and Tony was an apple who didn’t fall far from the tree. But I also know Tony went through a lot before the Avengers, had a lot of really awful stuff happen to him, and that’s not stuff you get over easily. As for Cap, I don’t know if he was ever quite okay after waking up 70 years later to find everything gone. I appeared 5 years later in my timeline and that was a nightmare enough. I don't know how he managed.”

Peggy tried to imagine. She glanced around the tidy diner, it’s tile and it’s booths, the kitchen on the other side where the waitress on duty and the cook chatted. It was all so real and solid and familiar. What if it were gone tomorrow? What if she were to wake up in a world where everyone she knew and everything she loved was gone in an instant, vanished with time while she lay there, helpless, unchanging? She thought of that happening to Steve, her sweet, earnest man from Brooklyn, and her heart broke.

“Anyway, at the center of it all with them both is they were guys who lost a lot of things in their life and the more they tried to put themselves together, the more they pushed everything around them apart. Tony had to control everything because he feared someone was going to use something out of his control to destroy the world. Cap didn’t want anyone to control them because of the same thing. And in the end, they were doomed to never see eye to eye on it. So, when Thanos came calling, they were off doing their own things and couldn’t come together when the world needed it and we all lost because of it.” 

Everyone and everything lost.

Before she could think twice on it, before she could even consider how utterly mad it all sounded, she heard herself saying “I’ll do it.”

Lang blinked at her. “What?”

“I’ll do it.” She primly sat up straighter.

“For real?” He looked as if all his dreams had come true, but didn’t believe that they possibly could have.

“I said yes.” She didn’t mean to sound so sharp, so she busied herself with snagging his forgotten cream pie slice and shoving it back at him. “After all, you came through time and space to come and find me, so here I am.”

Lang ignored the pie momentarily. “You do know that if you do this, there’s no going back. I’m working on a hope and a prayer I can even get you to the time I want to get you to.”

“Yes.” She tried to swallow against the sick feeling that rose with the thought.

“That means whatever future you might have had here and now is gone. Essentially, we are rewriting history by all of this.”

“Let’s hope I wasn’t a major part of history, shall we?”

Lang nodded, finally breaking out in a boyish smile. “All right then. So, let me finish this pie and we can get out of here.”

The future! She was really considering this man’s crazy plan.

“I should get another slice,” Lang mused, nearly swallowing what was left whole. “I mean, I’ll not ever get this again.”

“You act as if they don’t have pie in your future.”

“They do, just, like I said, not like this.” He was already reaching again in his suit, pulling out coins he tossed on the table. “A quarter for pie. Gees, inflation I know is a thing, but honestly, where did those days go?”

He picked through the shiny metal as Peggy watched the scatter of coins. One quarter had rolled by her coffee mug and she picked it up with her red-lacquered nails, studying it carefully. It had the profile of George Washington on one side, but on the obverse, a print of a bear in what she assumed was a stream and the words “Alaska, 1957” printed at the top, with “2008” close to its bottom.

“Alaska?” She flipped the coin around to face him and he took it, squinting as he studied it.

“Oh, yeah, the state coins! I should keep that, Luis collects those.”

“It’s not a state, it’s a territory.”

“Not in 2018 it isn’t. Alaska has been a state since the 1950s, same with Hawai’i.”

She blinked at the bit of silver in her hand. What in the world had she gotten herself into?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, waving away some of the timey wimey stuff...because yeah, it's all make believe. I love, love, love, love, love Endgame so very much, but I just didn't feel like bending myself into pretzels making this very familiar premise work. So there you have it!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy says goodbye to her old life.

“Seriously, what in the world do you people do without television?”

Peggy barely deigned to give Lang a glance as he slumped all over her settee, flipping through her book on lockpicking. “I assume by television you mean the glass screen with moving pictures that Howard keeps telling me will revolutionize communications.”

“He’s not wrong, it does.” Lang set the book aside, either bored with it or finding it of little use. “I grew up on television, it’s how we all get our news and information.”

“I can’t see why staring at a glass tube for hours is good for you.” She glanced through the jumble of words on the page before her, hoping to God it made sense. Howard would understand, wouldn’t he? If anyone would get the weird, strange, fantastic situation Peggy had landed in that night, he would be it. Between HYDRA, Leviathan, and Whitney Frost, there had been enough strangeness for Howard to hopefully be open to the idea of time travel on top of it.

Her guest threw himself up to wander around her small, if comfortable, apartment, picking up knick knacks and various odds and ends that cluttered the space, most of which had come with the flat when she rented it months before. “I’m not kidding, what did you people do for fun?”

“They had entertainment for much of human history before moving pictures became a thing.” She hadn’t mentioned Steve exactly in the letter, fearing that if she did he’d try to find him well before she could be there. That left the question of what she could mention to even explain any of this. Should she mention to Howard the fact that he had a son or that she was going to help him try not to leave the world a shambles? Perhaps she shouldn’t. She didn’t want to create expectations in Howard or lay pressure on the future Tony. That sort of heavy burden was unfair and he deserved to grow up as carefree as any other child. She had a feeling being Howard’s son would be difficult enough.

In the distant corner Lang flicked on the radio, momentarily fascinated with the console as he twisted through channels. “My grandparents had one of these as a kid! Still worked too. I used to listen to my college alt rock on it when I was in my deep and moody music phase.”

She had no idea what any of that meant, but assumed it had to do with whatever popular music was a part of his time. “I’m putting the finishing touches on this note. Anything you feel I should leave in for Howard at all?”

“I still say writing letters to people is a bad idea. We don’t want to give too much of the future away.” Lang looked troubled as he landed on a station playing dance music from one of the local ballrooms for the New Year's festivities.

“I’m already traveling in time, that will upset it all enough.”

“I know, just we don’t know how much any of it will affect future outcomes, good or bad.” He shrugged as he flicked the radio off again. “I’d maybe tell him that he should teach his kid not to be an arrogant asshole, but you know, that could be a Stark family trait.”

Peggy only smiled. “I’m afraid he comes by that honestly, knowing Howard.”

“I can’t say I knew the guy, just heard stories of him from Hank, none of them good. But, in fairness, Hank isn’t a picnic either and I like him. Something about genius and hubris, I guess.”

Peggy regarded the letter one last time. How did one pack so much to say into so few words? “I feel like I should warn him about what is coming.”

“You could, but I don’t know what anyone could do to stop it.”

“Seventy years is a long time to think of something.”

“What? Some ray gun to zap into space?” Lang snorted, leaning against her writing table. “Stark has the philosophy of protection means creating bigger guns and ensuring we are the only ones who own them, which is fine in theory, but these things have a tendency of getting out of hand rather quickly. Just look at the situation you are in now with Russia, each side making bigger and scarier bombs. One false move and everything goes to hell and people die because of it.”

That thought had been discussed extensively of late in the halls of power, including SHIELD. A small sliver of fear slid through Peggy’s heart. “Has that happened in your future?”

“Not precisely.” Something grim rose to the fore in Lang’s expression. “It almost happened, once, but someone actually managed to stop it before anyone died. After that, all sides agreed to stop stockpiling weapons and that was that.”

Still, the idea of saying nothing to Howard did not sit well with her. “You want me to help a future calamity, correct? What if I could lay the groundwork here to at least start that?”

Lang still didn’t look convinced. “All I can say is I’m taking a huge gamble doing this and I’m not sure that’s going to work.”

It was the first time since she’d agreed to this madcap scheme that she realized what a gamble this was. She was playing at something that in all likelihood may not work. It was a long shot in every conceivable way. It wasn’t the first longshot she’d been in, though, and if there was one thing she had faith in, it was in her instincts about people around her.

“I trust Howard with this at least, and I don’t trust him with much. You said we need every advantage, and I’m giving us one.”

Lang quickly gathered she wasn’t going to back down from this. “All right, but just word it in such a way that we don’t find some sort of apocalypse when we land.”

“I can promise nothing where Howard is concerned.” It was a true enough fact, She was long used to tempering Howard and some of his more impulsive actions. His act first, question later attitude was dangerous when faced with difficult diplomacy and for a moment she worried leaving him behind to man all this by himself. She had to pray Phillips or Mr. Jarvis would be a voice of reason to him when his own impulses said otherwise.

Before she could think twice on the matter, she scratched the last lines of her letter, her pen flying across the page.

_I don’t know what I will find when I get there and I hope that you’ve not left a mess for me to clean up. I’m not even sure who I will find on my arrival or if you will even be alive. I know this; something is coming in the future, something that threatens the survival of everything. I’m needed. I know that SHIELD still exists even then, or at least I hope it survives, and perhaps I can turn to them for help. I only ask that you be smart, think through your decisions and consider what you leave behind, not only with SHIELD and your company, but your family as well. That is a legacy that will see us through, I hope._

_This is all mad, I know, but I know what I am doing is right, and I’m making this insane journey with the full knowledge of what I’m leaving. For all our many differences over the last decade, know I’ve always considered you the dearest of friends. Despite it all, I think I will miss you the most. Please take care, Howard. One day, you will settle down. Appreciate every minute with the family you have, and remember me fondly to them. I hope I get to meet them._

_Give all my love to Edwin and Ana and know I will cherish them and their friendship always._

_Yours,_

_Peggy_

She refused to give into the tears that now lined her lashes and instead quickly folded the letter, stuffing it into the envelope she had at hand, sealing and addressing it. She was never one to give into a lot of deep sentiment, but her loss was already beginning to ache. She neatly stacked it, placing it with the letters to her parents and to Michael in London, to Chester Phillips in Washington, to Angie in Los Angeles on a film project, to Edwin and Ana, and to Daniel last of all. All the people she cared for in her life, all the ones that mattered. She was leaving them all behind to go on this mad quest, and parting with a few hastily scrawled words in some letters. She prayed that they would understand.

“Right, then, I’ll drop these in the post.” She sniffed loudly, pretending that her throat wasn’t already clogged with tears as she stepped outside long enough to go to the mail slot at the end of the hall. She would miss this flat, the first adult one she had since leaving her parents ten years before, the first she could afford on her SHIELD salary. She was walking away from a lot; her entire world, the position she fought for, the agency she had built, her life in New York City. She couldn’t lie and say it didn’t ache painfully knowing what she was doing.

But she would be saving the world...and Steve…

Back inside she found Lang wandering her kitchen, picking through her meager pantry with childlike fascination. “Seriously, your cabinet is like an episode of Antiques Roadshow.”

“It is 1948, what do you expect?” She sniffed, imagining in his world everyone had Howard’s flying car and things were made of chrome and steel.

“It’s 1949 now. You took so long writing letters the year changed.”

“I am leaving something behind for my friends before I go on this mad quest.” She couldn’t help but be snappish about it as she reached to the fruit bowl to snag the apples she had there and put them in a paper bag. “I don’t suppose you know when exactly we will be going?”

Lang had wandered now to the ice box, staring in fascination. “Seriously, this looks like a _Looney Tunes_ cartoon in here.”

She glared at the back of his head and pushed the door shut, nearly on him.

“All right. I know they thawed Cap out in 2012, right before the big alien invasion. I’m hoping we hit right before there.”

“Alien invasion?”

“Yeah, apparently they like us, or they like invading us. Anyway, I’m thinking maybe January of 2012, just to be on the safe side.”

What was this strange world she was walking into? Taking her bag of apples, she wandered back to her bedroom. “I’ll change and pack up and then we can go.”

She had, already making her mental list of what to take. How did one pack a lifetime’s worth of things in a few moments? Not that she had much. She had started in America with very little, just the things she had sent over to her during the war and her life had been so mobile since she hadn’t had time to gather the detritus of living. There were smaller things, photos and journals, her grandmother’s jewelry, letters tied neatly together in a bundle, the novel she was only a quarter of the way through. These things she gathered with quiet efficiency, pulling them onto her tidy bed as she snagged her old, Army issued rucksack from the back of her closet. She packed the precious items in there carefully, sandwiched between clothing, make up and toiletries, the sort of other things she grabbed whenever she was out in the field. This was a mission, like any other, she told herself as she tucked in extra ammunition for her weapon, which was also carefully packed wrapped up in a nightgown by her favorite pumps.

She changed into far more practical clothes for this type of excursion, sturdy trousers, a sweater, serviceable boots, mentally going through any last items she may want to bring with her. Her eyes gazed around the room, stopping at one photograph she kept tucked away on her vanity. Her fingers brushed against it as she studied it with an aching heart. A photo of Steve from Camp Lehigh, before the serum, or Captain America, or any of it. She never knew what day it had been snapped, it could have been any one, really. He stood squinting and out of breath, eyes focused on something in the distance, determination set in every line of his shoulders and face. She carefully slid it into her pack, inside of her partially read book. She packed the apples on top of all of this and cinched the whole thing tightly with the sort of resolve she had before heading out into the field. 

Lang was waiting outside, this time his nose in the day’s paper. “Seriously, though, the Communists are not the big threat everyone seemed to assume them to be.”

“Says someone who came out on the other side of history from this.” She snagged the apples she had packed earlier, opening her rucksack enough to fit them in. “I think I’ve packed for the end of the world. Are you ready?”

He beamed as he pulled out a watch-like device similar to the one wrapped around his own hand. “Put this on?”

Peggy took it with ginger fingers. It was so light for all the power it had, really just metal, glass and plastic. It looked so foreign as to be from outer space, but she slipped it on as he asked.

“Now what?”

“You push this button here….”

His gloved fingers pressed against a large button to the side of the device. It beeped, slightly. For half of a heartbeat nothing happened. Then something like tiny, silver bugs began to come pouring out, climbing all over Peggy’s hand, wrapping around it before her horrified eyes. They climbed up her arm and down her torso, leaving behind a sort of suit that swathed her in white. Before she could even swat a hand in terrified protest, Lang was jumping in to reassure her. “It’s nanotechnology, don’t worry. It’s one of Stark’s new, fun creations.”

She stared at it, plucking at the durable fabric as it pulled like any other would. “How does it do that?”

“Tiny robots. Sounds weird, but when you can shrink down to the size of nothing, not as weird as you would think. Now, these will keep you safe in the quantum realm as you move between times.”

“All right.” This she could live with. She fingered the outfit, the fabric sturdy and rough under her fingers. “Just how dangerous is this?”

Lang at least was honest here. “It could be very dangerous.”

Up went her chin at that response. “Well, Mr. Lang, if you know anything of my history, you know danger isn’t exactly something I shy away from.”

“I know, that’s why I came and found you. Well, that and because you have a way of getting people’s heads out of their asses.” He reached into a pocket on the side of his belt from which he pulled out a small vial of red liquid. “Pym particles to get this all going.”

“What is that?” She watched as he reached to a spot on the belt of her own outfit, snapping it in.

“Something that Hank created that allows me to shrink or grow. This is enough to get you to the right year.”

“And how do I get there?”

“Leave that to me.” He reached for her hand and the wrist device. “Why he made the dial so tiny on these things is beyond me. How is one supposed to see this?”

She frowned at the side of his head as he squinted down at it in the dim light of her apartment. “Do you want me to do it?”

“No, I got it...I think.” He squinted even harder, but seemed to be satisfied. “Right, so when I say go, you hit the big white button here and then zap, you’re gone!”

The idea of it made Peggy’s already nervous stomach lurch with anxiety. “And you will be there as well?”

“Yeah! Well, at least long enough to make sure that you are okay.”

“And then what?” Their lack of a definitive plan was just now hitting her, as were her doubts.

“Well...then we get you settled...I guess. I mean, SHIELD is still there.”

“Is this your great plan, drop me off in a different century and make me someone else’s problem?”

Lang shook his head. “No...absolutely not, just..okay, maybe a little bit, but you know, you made it through a war and fought Nazis and HYDRA! I mean New York is New York? How hard could it be?”

“You were just astonished the pie was a quarter. I have no money, no references.”

“Relax, I won’t just dump you off, I’ll make sure we got you someplace safe. Then we will contact SHIELD and explain what we did!”

She glared doubtfully up at him. “And SHIELD will listen to you?”

“Maybe...probably...hopefully.”

“Mr. Lang…”

“Relax, we got this! Now, you all packed and ready to go?” He grabbed her rucksack to help her slip into it as they cinched and tightened the straps to secure it to her body. 

Peggy wasn't convinced this wouldn't end in disaster. “If I end up locked in Bellevue because of you…”

“I don’t even know what that means, but I can assure you that you won’t. Helmet up!”

He clicked another button on her wrist, a helmet skittering over her head, much like the suit had over her clothes. Peggy was too startled to protest, jumping as she clutched her rucksack with her free hand. Through the clear material of the front she could see Lang do the same. Through some sort of radio device inside she heard him clearly.

“When I say go, you hit the large button.” He pointed to it on his own device and she nodded, finding it on her own.

“Okay! In 5...4...3...2...1…”

Her gloved finger punched the button. Then the world turned upside down.

Perhaps upside down wasn’t the word...more like it grew and stretched, faster than the moment between breaths. Everything drew itself out into long streaks of light, a tunnel of brightness, as she felt herself sink further and further into it. Somewhere ahead of her...or was it beside her...she could see Lang’s form, shooting through the light.

Until they came to a fork in the glowing tunnel...and Lang shot off to one side and she another.

Was that supposed to happen?

Reality shrank, her body seemed to rise as she felt herself slow down...or was it stand up, she couldn’t be sure...appearing so suddenly it took her breath away. Dizzy and disoriented she felt her knees buckle as she fell onto frozen dirt and rock, gasping as she searched for the button on her wrist device that lowered the helmet back down again. Blessedly it disappeared, the nano-whatever crawling back wherever they came from as she gulped the cold air, resisting the urge to get sick right where she sat. 

Where the hell had she landed? When the hell had she landed?

It was day, she guessed...dawn, just after sunrise. It was cold, likely January? She was in an empty lot, surrounded by a chain link fence, tall buildings - some of them recognizable - ringing the space. It took her long moments before it hit her that she had landed in the space where once upon a time her cozy apartment once had existed. It was no longer there.

Her home, and indeed her entire world, was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...Michael Carter. I have a whole story about him sitting in my Google Drive and in my brain. There is an explanation I skirt around, especially when Sharon comes into the picture, but I won't be explaining in this story, except to say Michael was alive and was up to some not so great things.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy arrives in the 21st century.

“Lang,” Peggy called softly as she tried to get her bearings. The footprint of the building that had been hers was still somewhat visible in the dirt and soil, tufts of brown, withered grass breaking through hard clods of dirt and concrete. Here and there pipe and broken glass littered the ground, glittering in the cold, misty air. No one else seemed to be around, though, certainly not Lang. Panic gripped Peggy as she struggled up finally to her feet.

“Scott,” she called, dusting off the strange suit she was in. Fumbling, she found the button again, the one that seemed to control the suit, pressing it to recall the skittering nanobots that had surrounded her. They pulled from off her clothes, from under her rucksack, and disappeared into the watch as if by magic. She stared at it for a long moment, dazed. It seemed to work, or so she was guessing from the fact her building was now gone. Lang had been beside her until they came on the fork in the lighted tunnel. He had...swerved, she supposed. But he had inputted the date himself, he should be here…

“Scott,” she called, a little more loudly, her voice echoing slightly against the other buildings. On the street, a car passed, but no other noise answered, not even to yell at her to shut up. She turned, wandering to the middle of the lot, hoping to see a huddled shape, a silver helmet, some sign of the man who had dragged her into the middle of all of this.

He wasn’t there - and Peggy was lost in time in New York City all on her own.

“Honey, are you alright?” A voice behind her, definitely not Lang, had her whirling, spinning in her stance, thrown off balance, embarrassingly, by her entire life’s possessions on her back, nearly causing her to topple. That she didn’t was perhaps a credit to her training, but it was the only saving grace she had from making a fool of herself.

“Um...I’m sorry?” Peggy pulled a polite smile from somewhere, wanting to seem non-threatening to...whoever it was speaking to her. On the other side of the sidewalk, in the middle of the fencing, stood a slight, slender man, a bright umbrella mushrooming over his head, watching her with kindly concern.

“I was just checking to see if you were okay. I heard you calling and thought ‘that girl sounds like she got trouble’ and I wasn’t about to let some damsel in distress get attacked on my block!” The accent was strange, words slurred together in odd ways, almost like the American Southern accent but a bit more lilting. “How did you get in that fence anyway?”

Peggy flushed, glancing up and down the length of it. “I...er..it’s a long story?”

“Pssshhttt, night after New Years, honey, don’t we all got those stories! I don’t judge!” He laughed brightly, wagging a finger as he looked up and down the fence himself. “I think there’s a hole down at that corner. Hold up, I’ll come help you out.”

Down the chain length fence, where the garbage cans had once stood, there was an opening, a hole that someone had cut, one that Peggy easily fit through. The man closed his umbrella, setting it aside enough to hold open the fencing and allow her to crawl out, shaking his head and clucking as he regarded her pallid and likely flushed state. “Honey, did you party a bit too much last night?”

She panted, considering. It certainly felt like the sort of horrific dream one had on mind altering substances and she’d been subjected to a few. “No, unfortunately, I seem to have run into a bit of an accident.”

That brought true worry to the fellow, who immediately started reaching for her head, as if checking for lumps. “Did someone attack you?”

Peggy scrambled for a cover story, some reason as to why a crazy woman would be standing in the middle of an empty lot calling someone’s name at the crack of dawn.. “No...I mean, I don’t think so. I don’t remember really.”

“There’s been some scary assholes in this neighborhood of late. Just last week my husband was mugged at gunpoint for his bike and tennis shoes. Day after Christmas! Some holiday spirit, huh? But he kicked their ass before they could lay a finger on him.” He touched gentle fingers to the side of her head, probing carefully. “I don’t feel bumps or nothing, but you should maybe go to the hospital all the same, get checked out.”

Did he just say husband? She blinked, trying to shake her head. “No! I...had an appointment today, I have to get to the office.”

“You are in no shape to be going anywhere.” He clucked again, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, I’ll get you up to my place, get you some tea and maybe warm you up a bit. Let Juan take care of you, sweetie.”

Few and far between were the men that Peggy let lay hands on her, but she felt too scattered to shake the seemingly well-meaning man off, and she could have. He was only her height and as skinny as a lamp post. But he seemed well meaning enough and she supposed the ruse of a damsel in distress who had run into a bit of trouble on New Years Eve night wasn’t too far off from the truth. Besides, it was good enough cover to explain her disorientation and confusion, not to mention a good way to get the help she would need to figure out next steps.

She glanced around, looking for Scott Lang and seeing no sign of him.

“What is today’s date?” She breathed as she stared at the slick streets, shivering against the bitter cold.

Juan shook his dark head. “Dear, you really are out of it. It’s the start of a new year and a new decade, January 1, 2010!”

Peggy blinked. That was two years off her mark. Lang was supposed to have deposited her in 2012! He had said he would, said he was going to input that into the device. Frantically, she looked at it in the ever-brightening light. The silvery-white numbers that appeared on the display did indeed read 1-1-2010. She would have cried if she could have wrapped her head around it. She was stuck in the wrong time, too early for whatever his plan was. Damn it!

“You sure you don’t want the hospital? You aren’t looking so good.”

Peggy could only imagine what a hospital would have to say. Lang was supposed to be there with her to help her navigate, find a place to get to, people to reach out to in a future she little understood. He was supposed to help her get to SHIELD...

“I need to get to SHIELD headquarters here in New York.” She prayed to God that they still had offices in the city. The Camp Lehigh facility had still only been research and Howard’s pet projects, but they had kept Bell building until they could further the Lehigh campus. Heaven knew where they were now.

“The one in Times Square? That place is a wreck after last night, what with the ball drop and party and all.”

Time Square? Why would they have moved offices there? “Doesn’t matter, I have to get to my office there. It’s vital.”

His eyebrows crept higher at that proclamation. “What like life or death?”

What did a teensy lie hurt? “Yes...maybe.”

“Oh, serious?” He gaped at her, torn between shock and delight. “This is like one of those spy shows, isn’t it, where it turns out you are fighting the Russians or something?”

Heaven help her, she would likely regret hinting at this. “Something like that, it’s imperative I get there.”

“Well, let me see if Papi will let me borrow the car then, get you there faster.”

Who in the world drove a car in this city? “Seriously, all I need is a cab.”

“The way they gouge prices on New Years? No! I’ll get you there myself. Civic duty, you know, I take that seriously as a proud Puerto Rican-American.” He took her arm and led her down the block, to a brownstone she remembered just the day before as being the home of an older, Jewish couple who were throwing a party for the holiday. “Meantime, let’s get you cleaned up and warmed up, _mija_! I knew you weren’t just some drunk or junkie having a bad trip after too much party, I got a real, goddamn, honest-to-goodness spy on my hands!”

Peggy was too addled to do anything but go with it.

She spent the next hour being made to bear witness to a brief and not-so-silent argument between Juan and his partner, Julio, most of which was in a dialect of Carribean Spanish she didn’t have the heart to tell them she understood. The crux of the argument seemed to be Julio’s concern over just who she was and wasn’t. Julio, a sensible man who appeared to work in the mayor’s office, seemed to be irritated with Juan’s habit of “finding strays” and bringing them home in the hopes of rehabilitating them, often with disastrous consequences. Juan felt Julio was overreacting and that she was a spy, clearly, as her accent was a dead give away. While they whispered at each other in the other room, Peggy managed to choke down some frankly fabulous coffee offered to her by Julio, along with toast and jam so delicious she could have cried if she weren’t already overwhelmed. All the while she stared at the device on her wrist, wondering if Lang’s magic phone could somehow connect to it, if he could call her and find her. Did he go to 2012? Where was he? Could she convince anyone at SHIELD of who she was? Should she even try?

“How you feeling?” Juan was exuberant as he sasheyed back in with only the barest hint of a glare back at Julio. The other man, taller, more fit, and certainly handsome, only rolled his eyes affectionately and ignored him.

“Better, thank you.” She swallowed the last of her toast and washed it down with the last dregs of coffee. “This was amazing! The best cup of coffee I’ve had, thank you.”

“Papi worked as a barista to put himself through law school,” Juan offered brightly, earning another glare from Julio. “What?”

The more cautious Julio clearly was the levelheaded one of this pair and was wise enough to not want to share everything about himself to a perfect stranger. “Ms. Carter, Nito says you want to go to SHIELD. Do you work for them?”

Peggy temporized, glancing at Juan, who was conspicuously busying himself with making a thermos of coffee. “I do.”

“And you were out in the middle of that empty lot down the street doing...what?”

He was a smart man, this Julio. “Look, Mister…”

“Vargas,” he supplied. “Julio Vargas, I work in the Office of the Mayor.”

And not William O'Dwyer, she reminded herself. “Mr. Vargas, I am sure you can appreciate it when I tell you that I am not at liberty to discuss the particulars. I can assure you, however, that I work for SHIELD and that Juan will not be breaking any laws or be put in any danger just driving me to the offices.”

“Seriously, Papi, I’m more in danger from the tourists than anything else.” Juan opened the sleek, brushed metal refrigerator to put the cream back inside of it. From the fleeting glimpse she got, she could see why Lang had been so fascinated by hers. They even made them light up inside!

Julio was less than amused. “I’m just saying that if you’re up to something, just know I have influence. Nito is good hearted, but I am not above coming down on anyone who takes advantage of that.”

“My big, strong man,” Juan crooned, somewhat sarcastically, as he leaned up to press a kiss to his cheek. “Seriously, you act as if everyone I bring in is a serial killer!”

There was a story there, and clearly, judging from poor Julio Vargas’ long-suffering expression, Juan may not bring home serial killers but he did had a track record of rescuing perhaps more suspect types. Peggy at least gave the other man the benefit of the doubt, knowing she was in no position to disprove him at the moment. He didn’t seem to mean to be rude, merely protective. Perhaps in this brave new world where a relationship like his was just open like that, he’d had to learn to be.

“Come on, Peggy!” Juan unceremoniously grabbed her hand, stopping long enough to help her grab her rucksack, and pulling her out to the stairs and down to a subterranean parking garage filled with sleek and shining cars. A far cry from the boxy, metal ones she was used too, these were rounded and smooth, ranging from large ones the size of covered jeeps to smaller ones so tiny they could only fit two. Juan wandered to a black car with the silver name “Lexus” emblazoned on it, clicking on some fob he had in his hand. As he did, the lights of the car began to blink. He touched a finger to the underside of the back of the car and it opened to the boot of the car, roomy enough for her overly large rucksack.

“Get in, it will take me a minute with the coffee.”

She did as she was told, surprised that the door was open she could slide into the soft, supple leather seat. It was a car far nicer than any she had ever seen, even the ones that Howard owned. She stared in fascination at the dashboard with its dials and buttons, none of which made sense to her. Juan slid behind the wheel, carefully putting his thermos into a special holder in a console between where she sat and where he sat. They had holders just for drinks in future cars?

“Hope you don’t mind a little pick me up this morning!” Juan pressed a button on the dashboard, right by the steering wheel. With a gentle purr the car came to life, lights flickering on as numbers lit up and a panel in the middle came to life. Words and numbers flickered across it and Juan began tapping at the screen much as Lang had on his phone the night before. It took her a moment to realize it was connected to some sort of radio, as out of the speakers some sort of rhythmic, Caribbean music began to play, filling the entire cabin with sound. It was as if someone took the sort of music Lang had turned on her radio the night before, cranked up the speed, turned it up to its full volume, and let it loose. It was bright and colorful in comparison to the still relatively early hour of the day, and Peggy found her head ached with it but was too grateful for this stranger’s help to say otherwise about it.

“Sorry for Papi back there, he says I need to quit picking up strays.” Juan was clearly unrepentant as he navigated the car through the tight parking garage and out of a barricade onto the slowly awakening streets. “He works in the mayor’s office, so you know, politics. He’s afraid I’ll bring home someone who will steal our stuff and sell the goods online or something.”

Peggy only nodded vaguely as they pulled into the world around them, only partially understanding what any of what Juan said meant. She was far too focused on the scenes playing out around her. The world of 2010 was so far removed from the one she had lived in just a day ago, her brain nearly melted with it. Many buildings were the same, or at least similar, but the city was far different. Grimier, dirtier, but still very New York, crowded to the gills with the sleek vehicles they drove. Lights were shining at you everywhere, from signs with moving text, to screens that had actual moving pictures, like the films, but in color, replacing the glare of neon she had known in her time. 

And the buildings! She stared off in the distance at the tall mountains crawling against the sky, the cavern she found herself in. New York had always had skyscrapers, with canyons of concrete and brick, but these new buildings were towers of glass, like something out of a fairy story, shimmering in the cold, gray light of winter. At least the Empire State Building remained, an anchor to the life she had just walked away from.

And then there were the people, who looked as different to her as she was sure she would have looked to them in her blue velvet dress from Howard's party the night before. Gone were the sturdy wool coats and the sea of battered, gray fedoras that had been the standard for her time. Everyone dressed in a motley of clothes, bundled against the chill in puffy, colorful coats, woolen caps on their heads, some in the long, sweeping great coats she remembered, but others in jackets of leather or nylon. The trousers and skirts of yesterday had turned into worn and faded blue jeans or casual slacks, underdressed in terms of what she was used to. The women in particular caught her eye, as most were in trousers - tight and well formed to their legs - while the few that braved skirts in this weather wore them short and form fitting, their legs covered in tights and boots with heels that surely must be far too high to be walking in comfortably.

This world was mad, colorful, busy and...brilliant, in its way.

“Did you just come from overseas?” Juan beside her eyed her speculatively as traffic crawled along 46th Street. It took Peggy a long moment to realize why he asked.

“Uh, no, I’ve been in the city for a while.”

“Just, your accent is so cute. You’re from England, right?”

The American fascination with the way she spoke at least hadn’t changed. “London, actually, born and bred.”

“Oh, I love London. I went there two years ago with Papí. We loved it! Did the London Eye and the palace, of course. We hoped to catch Will or Harry, but you know, not like you see royal princes everyday!”

She had no idea who Will or Harry were, outside of princes, which likely meant the British monarchy was still in power. “It’s been a long time since I was home.”

“I bet you miss it.”

She didn’t know. The London she had left behind in 1945 was a bombed out shell of its former self, a city still proud even in its ruination. Like so many coming home from the war, she’d looked at it all and realized the life she had known before the war was gone. Destruction, hardship and loss had changed her and everyone. She had already been with the SSR for years at that point and when Phillips had offered her a chance to transfer into the New York office, she had taken it, despite the fact that all of her deeds and the truth of her actions during the war would be classified. The indignity of being an over glorified secretary stung, but it soothed the ache of going back to a home where the ghost of memories of what had come before still haunted its streets. Not that New York hadn’t been haunted in its own way, she reminded herself, thinking of Steve and Bucky.

They pulled into the madness of Times Square and for Peggy, whose mind was already reeling, she quite openly gaped. From wall-to-wall it was covered with giant screens, not unlike the phone Lang had carried, with full color, moving adverts, so lifelike it was frightening. And when there weren’t these magic screens, there were billboards, all for brands and products, some she thought were theater shows, so loud and big it nearly left one breathless. The seediness and somewhat benevolent criminality of the area she knew in the 1940s, which had been a delicious mix of above and below board, had been replaced by a loud, over-the-top slickness that seemed to draw crowds of all sorts. The Times Square of her time had not been filled with crowds of people she saw now, tourists likely, with their strange phones out, holding them up, she assumed to take photos of each other.

“So what you going to do? Just walk in the front door looking like that and hope they are cool with it?” Juan still eyed her as if she might just fall over if he let her out of her sight. It had been quite the argument to get him talked out of taking her to the hospital or calling the police.

“Yes, actually” she muttered, glancing down the block, past a pizza parlor and a theater advertising a show called _In the Heights_ , to the next block where an imposing black basalt structure was. The glass windows were etched with a stylized eagle on the front, not dissimilar to the eagle that had once marked the SSR.

Juan honked his way to the curb, cursing fluently in a mix of English and Spanish, a mish-mosh of pidjin that she found utterly fascinating and musical. When he pulled to a stop he pushed several buttons, one of which she knew popped the back open as she heard it click.

“Best get out before they think we got a bomb or something,” he muttered, climbing out of the car despite the fact it sat in the lane of traffic. Predictably, cars slowed behind him, stopping and honking, but Juan blithely ignored them as he helped Peggy pull her bag out and slip it on over her shoulders. “Damn, woman, what you got, your entire house in here.”

“Practically,” she smiled, adjusting as she stared at the intimidating building in front of her. This could either end very strangely or very badly, it was hard to decide which. Damn Lang for dragging her into all of this!

“You want me to wait? I can wait, if you need.” He was truly concerned and Peggy couldn’t help but be touched by the kindness of a stranger who had found her standing in the middle of a field.

“That is very sweet, but perhaps not.”

“At least take my card, okay, just in case you need anything. I mean, I know, spying, so glamorous, but you know, lowkey, I can help.”

He shoved a card at her from the pocket of his dark, puffy coat and she took it gratefully. Much like the owner, it was colorful and vibrant, with a photograph of a woman in a daring and exotic looking dress in wild colors, and the other side printed simply with his name - _Juan Machado_ , designer and artist. For whatever reason - for it was a far cry from the very elegant and classic aesthetic of Mr. Jarvis - she thought of him and the unflappable kindness he had, the sort of guileless charm and acceptance, taking the world at face value. It made her heart ache. 

“Thank you,” she responded, genuinely, reaching out to shake his hand. “I’ll call you this week and find a way to repay you for this.”

Juan flapped a hand at her. “Please, what one of us hasn’t gotten in a jam on New Years. Pay it forward is what I say. But, you know, if you want to meet and have lunch, I work at a theater here, so I will never say no to free food.”

Considering she didn’t even know what food options there were in this brave new world, Peggy considered lunch with a native a brilliant way to learn. “Then consider it done, Mr. Machado!”

“Juan, please, Mister is Papi!” With a roguish wink and a grin he rounded his car again to the open driver’s side door, swearing in Spanish again at some honking man in a large, white delivery truck. With a smile, she turned to the sidewalk to contemplate the plate glass doors in front of her. It was only then she got a good look at herself in the reflection of the windows and stopped in mild horror. She looked nothing like Peggy Carter, to be honest. Her hair, which had been pinned neatly at the start of this venture, was now frizzed after her madcap trip, her makeup smudged, her lipstick faded with warm food and drink. She should have taken the time in Juan’s flat to tidy herself, she realized belatedly, at least to get out of the functional clothes she had put on last night and into the suit she packed tidely away. Too late for that, she supposed. Best bite this by the bullet and move forward.

She opened the heavy doors, stepping inside the warmth. The lobby itself was quiet, with no people, really. It only hit her as her footsteps echoed on the pale marble that this was a national holiday, so there would be few people in any office in the city. A wide expanse greeted her, dotted here and there by leather chairs that blessedly didn’t look so different than some of the modern furniture in her own time, and a large desk at the far end, backed by the same basalt on the outer facade behind it. Emblazoned on it was the same stylized eagle she saw etched on the glass windows, done in silver chrome, with the name "Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division" wrapping around it. It was still the name that she had brainstormed with Howard all those years ago. She could at least take some small comfort in that.

Behind the desk, watching her mildly with polite curiosity, where a man and woman. Were they the security for the building? They wore what looked to be uniforms, dark blue blazers and white shirts, the man with a tie worn loose and sloppy around his neck. She guessed they had to be employees and hoped her frazzled appearance and the story she was making up as she crossed to them wouldn’t have them calling the police. The woman was busily typing away on keys attached to a glass screen of some sort, flat like the television Juan had on in his home. The man was staring listlessly at a similar screen hanging on the far marble wall, far larger, which seemed to be playing some sort of sports programming, an American football game someplace where clearly winter didn’t really exist. The colors were vibrant and lifelike, even in the cold sterility of the warm, cream colored marble.

“Excuse me.” She stepped to the desk, aware again of her strange outfit and scattered appearance. “I’m hoping the two of you might be able to help me.”

The woman perked up immediately, while the man somewhat turned his gaze from the sporting match on the screen. “Sure, if I can help. What do you need?”

The woman was American, though not a New Yorker with that accent. “Yes, I used to work here once, a long time ago, and am interested in seeing if I could speak to someone about my time here and potential opportunities.”

She hoped that didn’t sound too mad.

The woman blinked large, dark eyes at her under a fringe of perfectly trimmed, dark hair. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but our offices are closed FOR the holiday. We will be properly open tomorrow at 9 am if you’d like to speak to someone.”

“No, I don’t know if I have time for that.” She sighed, frustrated. She should have thought this through more, perhaps had Juan wait after all. “You see, I’ve only just arrived and I need to make some arrangements with an organization who understands what I have to offer.”

The woman, whose name tag declared her as “Kimberly” only met her with a blank, patented friendly look that was quite clearly practiced, though Peggy could tell behind the expression the gears were whirling. She glanced to the woman’s side and there was no weapon there, nor on the man’s hip, but perhaps on the back…

“I see.” The woman’s smile hadn’t dropped a centimeter, but she could see her posture stiffen as beside her the man - named Brandon as she read on his nametag tag - suddenly began paying more attention to the scene in front of him. “I suppose it is a bit chilly out there.”

Peggy considered. The statement was innocuous enough, given that she was a visitor presenting herself and the weather was cold outside, but she’d been in the game long enough to recognize the sort of language floating around, even in her time. It wasn’t precisely the truth about her, but she would take it. “Yes, I suppose it is nice to come in from out of the cold.”

The woman nodded as the man reached for a phone and began dialing a number, asking someone to come upstairs to the lobby, muttering a code at them. The woman didn’t even glance sideways at it.

“Could I have a name then, Miss…”

She could have given her name, but that would be a dead give away. She went with an alias instead. “Wexford, Katherine.”

“Miss Wexford.” She typed the name into the keyboard, staring at the screen in front of her. Whatever she was doing, it caused her to stop and stare, first at the screen, then up at Peggy again, eyes wide as she tried to keep her composure.

“Uh...errr...was that Wexford?”

Feeling she had suddenly somehow committed a _faux paux_ she was going to need to somehow work her way around she nodded. “Yes.”

The man leaned over, peeked at the screen, then back up at Peggy, his expression becoming more like the woman’s. They both looked at each other as Kimberly uttered “Oh my God” just as a door by the desk opened and five men, all with some sort of long batons, poured out, surrounding her and the desk. The man at the furthest end, the leader she supposed, barked an order for her to hold her hands up and cooperate, if she wouldn’t mind.

What else could she do?

The two agents behind the desk stared at her as she complied, one of the other black clad fellows immediately patting her down as she felt something click around her right wrist. She sighed. It wasn’t the first time she was arrested in her life. She only hadn’t expected it to happen her first few hours in a new century.

“Well, bugger,” she muttered as they gently, but firmly, led her away, the two agents behind the desk staring at her as if they had seen a ghost.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy is made an offer.

The one thing she could say about the future was at least they had improved their holding cells from her day. The one that SHIELD currently held her in was sumputious compared to what the SSR had before. She even had a bed with a rather lovely mattress in it and a toilet with privacy. Still, it wasn’t particularly exciting to be sitting, staring at gray walls and tile floors, and she had at least convinced them to allow her the novel she’d packed and the bag of apples she’d tucked inside. She crunched through them as she picked through Irwin Shaw’s _The Young Lions_ , wondering just how long they intended on making her wait. Thus far it had been four-and-a-half hours, and if they wished to keep her over night she certainly hoped that there would be something more substantial than her snack. The travelling between times had left her famished, and save for the coffee and toast pressed on her by Juan that morning, she’d had nothing since.

Her plan had somewhat gone accordingly, not that she’d had much of one to begin with, only a vague hope and a prayer that she might be able to convince someone at SHIELD she wasn’t mad and that she wanted to help. She hoped by telling them she was a spy seeking to come in out of the cold they’d be interested in talking, at least enough for her to get a foot in the door. She hadn’t bargained on the full custody and lock up that they had engaged in before she could even blink. The next thing she knew, she was having her hand scanned by some strange light device, her mouth swabbed by a very professional and pleasant attendant whose badge read “lab technician” and her bag confiscated and searched. She wasn’t particularly surprised by the latter, and while her weapon had been taken temporarily - or so they said - they had allowed her the snack and book. She had then been escorted to this comfy if bland room and had not heard a word since. Judging from the reaction of the two agents she didn’t know if that meant that they discovered she wasn’t Katherine Wexford or they had figured out she was Peggy Carter, either way she would have thought they would have had a million questions for her.

It was just as this thought had flickered through her mind that the sound of a beep and a tumble of a lock sounded at the door to her holding room. It opened with a soundless whisper and a tall, bald, dark-skinned man swept into the room, distinguished looking and dressed head-to-toe in black. Well...as she considered him, sweep was perhaps less the term. He sauntered more than anything, rather like a large cat as he regarded her with his one good eye where she sprawled on the mattress with her book and apples and sat himself without preamble at the table in the corner.

“I believe we need to have a conversation,” he drawled with all the self-confidence of a man who was used to being in charge, dropping a large, heavy manila folder on the table. “If you would please, Ms. Wexford...or would you prefer me to use your legal name?”

Peggy realized the jig was up at least, which was the whole point, but she still was wary as she uncurled herself from the mattress and wandered to the other seat to meet the man’s singular gaze with a smile. “I wondered how long it would take for you to figure it out. I’m stunned that you aren’t here with an army of psychiatrists determined to mark me as mad.”

“You’d think a dead woman showing up in my building on a national holiday 60 years after she disappeared would be the strangest thing I’ve ever seen, Director Carter, but I can assure you it doesn’t even register in the top ten of my ‘weird shit’ list.”

That gave her pause, but she didn’t want to let him see that. “I’m afraid to ask what does rate, then.”

The man only smirked as he flipped the file open. Peggy could see attached to the left was her official portrait for SHIELD, the one Howard had insisted she get when they began plans for the new building. He rifled through several papers on the top, pulling one in particular and setting it in front of her. It only took a moment to recognize the quick, concise words in her neat handwriting, penned by her just the night before...at least in her reckoning of time it was just the night before.

“Howard Stark figured you would turn up one day. Thanks for the note, incidentally, helped us plan for it.”

She blinked, a soft smile curving as she touched the letter briefly. “I’m glad he took it seriously.”

“Seriously enough he tried to figure out a way to find you, but never did. Best he could hope for is that you would come wandering in. We’ve waited a long time for you to come back.”

Relief and sadness flooded her as she tried not to think of Howard and her disappearance and what it had done to those she left behind. “I figured they would all assume I had died.”

“Most had. Section Chief Sousa put out a full investigation into the matter, despite Howard’s protests, and came up with nothing, but it at least was enough that your family could declare you dead and move on.” He tapped the file briefly. “Truth be told, not many believed Howard’s story, especially no one who came after.”

“But you did?”

He shrugged broad shoulders lazily. “Like I’ve said, I’ve seen a lot of weird shit.”

Peggy could only snort as she met his posture, studying him briefly. He had to be in his late 50s, stern, with scarring in and around the patch over his left eye. By his bearing coming in and the sharp way he watched her with what vision he had left she guessed he had seen some military at some point, but he was certainly an operative or had been one, perhaps, till the accident that took his eye.

“Who might you be?” She thought she might as well be blunt about it.

“Colonel Nicholas Fury, Director of SHIELD.” He held out a hand for her. She stared at it a moment before taking it firmly. “I will say that it actually is an honor to finally be meeting the legend.”

“I don’t know how legendary I am, Colonel, but thank you.”

“The two agents you met this morning have been gibbering about it ever since, so I think your reputation still remains intact.

Peggy couldn’t help but laugh out loud at that. “I couldn’t tell if they thought I was mad or someone else.”

“Katherine Wexford was one of the alias’ you used in your SSR days. We have them all on file. When they typed it in, up you came, Peggy Carter, one of the founders.”

Founders? She had never used so lofty a title in her time and it smacked overly of Howards influence. “I was an agent turned organizer, nothing more. I was the one likeable enough and responsible enough to get things done.”

“History has a funny way of getting away from you and doing its own thing, especially when you aren’t here to control it. Which leads me to my main point of interest. How you ended up 60 years from your own time and why?”

It was a fair question and Peggy wished she had more to tell him than just signs of imminent danger. “So, last night, for me at least, I had a man appear in a back alley to tell me that the world was in danger and I was the only one who could fix it.”

She wasn’t sure if Fury had expected that out of her or not. He did take a long moment to blink slowly at her. “Go on.”

She had a feeling this was all going to sound rather foolish once she got the entire story out. “There was a man, Scott Lang, who appeared in the bins. He said he’d come from the future, 2018 to be exact. He said that something is coming, something terrible, something that could destroy half the universe, an alien - Thanos, I think. He said that they needed the Avengers for it.”

At this, Fury perked up, frowning at her as he scooted up and leaned towards the table. “The Avengers?”

He knew what that was about, clearly. “That’s what he said. There was something a split over something, he didn’t say what, but that their division is why they will lose.”

He stared inscrutable at her for long moments. “Did he say why it was you of all people could fix something like that?”

“Because…” She trailed off, unsure how to put this. It would sound horribly like a lovesick schoolgirl, saying it out loud, and she was far from that. “Because I’m the only one who could get through to the two men who you have leading this group.”

Fury didn’t need to ask her who those men were, she could see the question on his face.

“Tony Stark and...Steve Rogers.”

She didn’t think he had been expecting that.

“Really?”

She could hear rather than see his smile and it gave way to an irrational need to be stubborn on the fact. “You accepted that I am Peggy Carter easily enough. Is it so hard to accept that what I told you is the truth?”

“In parts, sure! Steve Rogers has been dead 65 years and Tony Stark is far more interested in his sports cars and supermodels than he is in saving the world.”

“Lang didn’t tell me how it was supposed to work, only that was the story he gave me.”

Fury processed that for long moments. “So, this time travel, how did you manage that?”

Again, Peggy felt at a loss and wished desperately she and Lang hadn’t been separated. “Something about a particle and quantum physics. He said it was invented by someone named Hank, he had a wife named Janet.”

“Hank Pym?” Fury whistled, chuffing briefly as he shook his bald head. “Greatest hits involved in this story.”

“You know who that is?”

“Pym used to work for SHIELD ages ago. had created something he called the ‘Pym Particle’, allowed him to grow and shrink as needed. He and his wife, Janet van Dyne, were pioneers in the field of quantum physics.”

Peggy thought of the picture on Scott’s phone of an older couple. “He showed me a photo of them, I think, from his time.” 

“Funny as Janet van Dyne disappeared twenty years ago. Some accident while out on a mission. She shrank and never came back. Pym decided his technology was too dangerous for the likes of SHIELD, certainly Howard Stark, and left to create his own company. He’s spat on us and Stark Industries ever since.”

Lang hadn’t mentioned any of that part of the story. “You’re certain? Because I saw a picture on his phone device with them in it.”

Fury could only shrug. “You left the past and jumped into the future. Who knows what sort of changes that created in reality, how that has altered the entire world by you stepping out of it.”

She hadn’t accounted for that part, and clearly neither had Lang as he suggested it. She had come forward thinking it was a good thing, that no one would miss her and that her loss wouldn’t affect anything greatly. The idea that it might have changed everything left Peggy feeling vaguely ill.

“All I know is that he was the one who developed the shrinking and that it’s his technology that Lang utilized to jump through time, but it was something else...a device, like a watch that Tony Stark invented. It was the one that had the way for us to get back and forth in time. Now, here I am.” She spread her hands wide in front of her.

“And here you are.” Fury sighed, nodding as he looked her over. “Telling me the world is going to be threatened and the only way to rescue it is to save a group that doesn’t even exist.”

“Not yet, at least. That isn’t to say you haven’t thought about the Avengers, though, am I correct?”

If Fury was surprised by her insight, he certainly hid it well. If anything, he was more delighted she had sussed it out. “The ‘Avengers Initiative’ is an idea. We’ve only been working on it a few years. We wanted a group of people with abilities, unique, powerful ones, who could create a force to head off those sorts of threats to the world that not even SHIELD could manage on our own.”

“Such as?” She was curious as to why such a group would even figure and what sort of threat he could possibly be referencing.

“Aliens, for one.” He smiled pointedly. “Whoever this is that you are referring to, he’s not the first nor the last. We’ve had several come to Earth over the millenia, all sorts of people, some who make it obvious what’s going on, others who hide in plain sight, masquerading themselves among us. Some of them are benign enough, but the rest, we have no defense for what they bring to the table. You fought against Johann Schmidt. He had a piece of alien tech and outfitted an entire army of destruction with it. Imagine what someone who knows what they are doing could bring to the table.”

Peggy well remembered Schmidt and knew exactly the sort of strange and deadly threats there were in the world. While aliens may sound like something from one of the pulp novels the Howling Commandos passed among themselves, she had also just traveled through time to end up in the future at the hands of a mysterious particle no one had discovered yet. Perhaps she shouldn’t be casting too many stones when the glass on her house was so shiny.

Fury continued. “The idea behind the Avengers was that we would have a weapon on our side, those with powers that were greater than the average human possessed. People willing to fight for all of humanity...superheroes.”

“Like Captain America,” she said simply, the hope and pride that she had felt for Steve Rogers rising ever so slightly within her.

“Like him, yes. Those sorts of people are hard to come by.”

“What if they weren’t?”

“What? Superheroes?”

“What if Lang wasn’t wrong? What if it’s just not become apparent yet that you have what you need right in front of you?”

Fury at least didn’t dismiss her idea out of hand. “You mean like Captain America?”

She nodded, slowly. “Lang was quite clear on Steve. They said he was found, that the Valkyrie is in the Arctic, between Greenland and Canada, and that he’s not dead only in...stasis.”

That seemed to intrigue the other man. “Stasis?” He mulled this, stroking a long finger briefly along his chin. “You were one of the researchers on the Project Rebirth team. You think that’s possible?”

Her heart wanted to think so. She had to think with her head, though. “Dr. Erskine said the idea of the serum was that it would protect the subject’s cellular integrity as much as possible and provide for faster regeneration. If a subject was injured enough, say through blood loss or oxygen deprivation, the subject could be put into a lowered metabolic state, a way to preserve what function it could in order to allow for faster healing. That said, there are things the serum couldn’t fix. Too much blood loss, too fast, would still kill a subject as quickly as anyone else, and decapitation couldn’t be fixed.”

“So as long as he didn’t suffer massive damage in the initial crash, he could still be alive?”

“In theory.”

Fury ruminated for several quiet moments. “That is still a massive area of the planet to pick through for one lone wreck, especially in winter. We’d be better off in the summer trying it.”

She bit down on the impulse to burst into tears at the idea he was even suggesting it. “You’ll go look for him?”

Fury only snorted at her question. “Look for the greatest soldier who ever lived? Hell, yeah, if he’s alive. Howard Stark sent up search teams for years looking for him, but never found anything. But with changes in global warming and weather patterns, he might turn up. We’ll put the word out in the fishing teams and shipping communities who use that route, see if they spot something. Let Canada and Denmark know and see if their military can keep an eye out, maybe see if we can pull it up on satellite imaging.”

Peggy wasn’t sure what satellite imaging was, but she nodded, feeling relieved and grateful all at once. “Good...that’s good.”

She had never considered in the past that Steve might have survived all of it, what that could have meant. The idea of him there, asleep in the ice for all this time while the rest of the world passed him by was heartbreaking and terrifying. What if she hadn’t jumped forward? Did she even in Lang’s timeline? She hadn’t asked, hadn’t thought to beg the question. Did the Steve in his timeline originally wake up to no one and nothing? Had he been all alone in a world that had moved on, a place where all his friends had died off?

That brought her to another depressing point, the fact that all of her own friends and family likely died off as well. She stared at the file in front of her, thick as an Army field guide. “I suppose I’m on my own then in this new century, at least till we find him.”

Fury’s stern expression softened somewhat, compassion leaking through his tough edges. “Not completely, no, but most everyone you knew is gone now. Chester Phillips died in 1970, well into his 90s, practically in the saddle from what I understand. Howard died twenty years later. Sousa is gone. Most of the old Howling Commandos all have passed on, but I think Jones is still alive.”

She nodded, her heart aching at the idea of Howard and Daniel now gone forever. It had only been the night before - hours ago for her, really - when she had been laughing at something Howard said. What was it? And Daniel had proposed to her out there on Howard’s balcony. She had broken his heart as he kneeled before her, expression so hopeful. Now he was dead.

She dashed at tears lining her lashes. “What about my family?” She felt most guilty over them. What had they thought when they received her letter? Had her mother’s heart finally broken? How had her father born it? What had Michael done? She hadn’t even considered, really, the long term impacts, she had just done it.

“What we know of them, they all were fine. One of them is here now in SHIELD, a great niece, Sharon. She’s not been informed of your sudden appearance, but if you would like, we could connect you both.”

He mind blanked at the very idea. “I’m sorry...you said a great niece?”

“Yes.” The word hissed through Fury’s perfect teeth.

Peggy blinked at him, wondering if perhaps her jump through time left her senses addled. “Michael’s ”

One of Fury’s grizzled eyebrows rose with the sort of look that was both rueful and apologetic. “There other Carter siblings running around in this world I need to know about?”

“No!” Michael had a granddaughter? It was strange to think that this was perhaps the least of the ideas she would have to get used to and wrap her brain around. She hadn’t even grappled with the idea that Howard had a son out there somewhere, likely most of the people she knew had children and grandchildren.

“I suppose I will need to figure out what to do with myself now,” she murmured faintly. “Before my presence starts causing trouble.”

“Your presence has already caused trouble, Carter, but nothing can be done about that now. Rumors are going to be flying by the start of business tomorrow, so we may as well embrace it.” Fury was no nonsense about this, rather like Phillips, and Peggy found herself warming to it. “Unfortunately, your title stands as ‘director’ and I can’t have another head running around.”

She hadn’t even considered that and what that would mean for him. “Honestly, I don’t know what I am doing or what to do. I came to SHIELD mostly because it was...familiar. After all, I helped build it, I hoped if anything it would be the one thing I left behind that I could turn to.”

“Believe me, the fact you didn’t think through what you were doing was loud and clear.” He tapped long fingers on her file on the table thoughtfully. “But you are an asset, Carter, and I’d be a fool to turn that down. You’re an experienced field agent with a unique knowledge into the founding of SHIELD and Project Rebirth. You were one of the smartest minds SHIELD ever had and grossly underutilized by the SSR, and I’m not about to throw a weapon like that away.”

He was practical, pragmatic. She was appreciating Fury more. “So I wouldn’t be asked to make the coffee and do dictation?”

“We have computers who can do all that for us now and a phone that does my calendar. I think I can manage.”

Well, that was a difference, at least. “I’ve lost 60 years in a single night. When last I was on the political scene, Soviet Communists were the threat and terror of the world. I don’t even know the political landscape now and I know how fast it changes. I would be no good to you as is, I don’t know the situation enough to take charge and I doubt my work in the field would qualify me now at days to do the same job. So, I have to wonder, Director, where you will place me if you do utilize me?”

Her response only made him grin. “You were never stupid, I grant you that. Why I always admired you the most of all the former directors. It’s also why I want you here. I figure we can have you work as ‘special consultant to the director’, a fancy title to say you do whatever I think you’re good at. I’ll have you working with my right and left hands mostly.”

“Right and left hands?” That hadn’t been a term she used in her all too brief time in charge.

“We’re spies, Carter, and you know how hard it is to rely on anyone in this job. Maria Hill is my deputy. She was a commander in the US Navy. She's tough as nails and keeps my people in line, which they often need. She handles much of SHIELD’s on the ground operations, particularly the military ops, and oversees personnel and deployment. She’s your go to for knowing what is going on and who is doing it at any one time. The other is Phil Coulson, my lead operative, head of field agents. He is my literal left eye and my left hand, heading up our intelligence and information. If there is something you need to find out or need done, Coulson can do it. He’s never failed me yet. He and Hill keep this place running, and I want you working with them. You always had a talent for seeing things no one else did, handling the cases no one else could. We could use that in SHIELD, if you are willing.”

She had to admit, considering where she had been only 24 hours before in her time, sitting in long meetings and negotiating budgets, this sounded far more appealing. “I’ll need a place to live and perhaps someone to acculturate me.”

Fury smiled slowly, clearly pleased she was agreeing. “I think that can all be arranged.”

Peggy nodded firmly sticking her hand out as he wrapped it in his own long fingers. “Well, then, let’s hope we don’t both regret this decision. What do you plan on telling everyone about me?”

“What else? Peggy Carter has finally come home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again there is a story with Michael...and one day I may write it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy finds a new home in this new century.

The future was a strange place, and Peggy found herself ill-prepared for it.

She had never been the futurist Howard was. For all her flights of fancy and romantic aspirations of glory, Peggy was a realist at heart and tended to take life as it came at her. She remembered all too well the conversations Barnes and Howard would enter into about technologies of the future, as the latter expounded on the idea of phones without wires that could communicate via radio waves across the world and airplanes that could fly so fast you could travel the globe in a day. She had dismissed it all as nonsense then and now could kick herself. The future was nearly just the way Howard had expected it to be.

Despite the fact that Fury was willing to welcome her with open arms, there was protocol to follow and the eternal problem of paperwork. She needed just as much proof of identity in 2010 as she had in 1949 and it became all the trickier when she was technically supposed to be nearly 90-years-old. Fury seemed to wave this off and had left it to the capable and efficient Maria Hill to make right. Commander Hill had been everything Fury had promised and Peggy could see immediately why it was Fury had her as his right hand. She was no nonsense and could keep a startling amount of information and threads going in her head at any one time, making her able to multitask to ridiculous levels. She was a born strategist and it took her less than five minutes in Peggy’s presence to begin a plan of action as to how to handle the newly returned SHIELD founder’s entrance into the modern world.

“So we’ll need to get you an identity in this world.” Immediately, the brunette began tapping lithe fingers across the large glass device, not dissimilar to the phone that Lang had, but what she had referred to as a “tablet”. Apparently the difference was it didn’t necessarily make calls, though clearly she was still able to communicate just fine on it.

“I have an identity I like very much, thank you.” Peggy hadn’t meant to sound waspish, but she was now on her third day in her rather nice detention cell. She’d hardly been out of SHIELD’s sight, mainly because they had been scrambling to decide what to do with her, as if she were the unwanted maiden aunt that everyone now had to deal with. A week into the future and she had been no farther afield than brief jaunts to the patio/garden area, which may have been lovely in the summer, but was frozen and frigid in the New York winter. Even then, between her rooms and the gray refuge outside were hundreds of eyes, all staring in wonder at the mysterious woman who seemed to have stepped out of legend, a curiosity no one was brave enough to approach or speak to like a human being. It was taxing and vexing and Peggy heartily found herself missing her now long gone tidy little flat from 1948.

Hill hardly seemed to take notice of her temper. “I wasn’t planning on changing it, but the world does think you are dead.”

“Oh, well, there is that.” Peggy sighed, flipping listely at her book. _The Young Lion_ s had ended on a depressing note, one that had left her thinking a great deal of Steve and of all the young men like him who had entered into a war and what had come out the other side. She set it aside as she regarded Hill instead.

The other woman was swiping diligently at her tablet. “I have an inside contact at the State Department who can pull some strings to quietly get you dual citizenship. This will allow you to have the right to stay in the US legally without having to give up your UK citizenship. I figure it’s the least we could do for someone who served to save both countries in a war.”

“A nice thank you, to be sure.” She was bemused by how handily Hill just seemed to cut through bureaucratic red tape. “Do you just snap your fingers and poof, the world turns?”

A small, rather rusty smile came to life on the other woman’s face. “Not quite, but we are spies and it’s sometimes useful in our line of work to have ties to people who can get things done without questions asked and in a timely fashion.”

That Peggy understood implicitly. “And you don’t even have to show a bit of cleavage or leg to get it done.”

It didn’t shock the other woman to hear that, but it did make her snort loudly. “Not that we don’t still have those same challenges, as many women can attest to, but you are right, it’s nice to be taken seriously when I ask for things. Besides, I also have access to all the dirt on most of the State Department, so that helps in negotiations.”

Clearly, Hill was a woman after Peggy’s own heart.

“I should get the citizenship thing cleared in a couple hours. Once that’s done, it’s a fairly simple process of producing passports and IDs, all the things to prove you are you. And then we can set up your bank account, credit cards…”

“Credit cards?” Peggy was frantic trying to keep up with her.

“Forms of payment using credit, fairly common with people in this time period. That reminds me, I should set you up with a financial advisor.”

“Advisor?”

“Sort of an accountant but usually with more experience in investments.”

Peggy stared at her as if she were mad. “I haven’t a cent to my name. What little I had saved was in a bank account long ago and I doubt is still around now.”

“It isn’t,” Hill replied half-distracted.

That was surprisingly depressing to her, the idea that the small salary she had worked so hard to earn was now lost to her. “Well, there you have it.”

Hill clearly was still half distracted as she continued. “Howard Stark got power of attorney over your funds and rolled it into some investments. That along with a tidy trust fund he set up with SHIELD in your name has made you enough money to make you a very wealthy woman, and make me rather jealous.”

Peggy stopped with the paper cup of atrocious tea she had been sipping halfway to her lips. “I”m sorry, what?”

Hill turned violet eyes up to her finally, blinking in lazy confusion. “You’re surprised by this?”

“Bloody hell, of course I am! Why would he do something like that?”

It clearly was no concern of the other woman’s as she simply tapped on her screen several times and then turned it to face her. Some sort of receipt or record of an account showed there with an obscene amount of money in it. Peggy stared at the figure, gaping like a fish as she tried not to choke on her tepid, awful tea.

“That’s...not all mine, is it?”

“Well it will be once we get it officially transferred to your name, but yeah, it’s all yours. Don’t go blowing it in one place.”

Peggy floundered, staring at the undrinkable stuff before setting it aside in agitation. “But...how?”

“It’s all above board, don’t worry.”

Peggy found herself snorting in frustration at the other woman’s calm. “I am not saying it isn’t, just...why?”

Hill paused in her tapping to consider - really consider - and not just wave it all away. “Perhaps he was always in love with you.”

Peggy at least had enough dignity not to laugh in the other woman’s face. “You never knew Howard Stark, but I can promise you the answer to that was no.”

“Then that answers one assumption I had.” Faint patches of pink rose across the woman’s high cheekbones as Peggy sussed out in an instant what she meant.

“Howard made his way through many women. I was not one of them.”

Hill looked embarrassed for even considering it. “Look...I’m sorry, it’s just...well, guy got around. His son is the same way.”

That was a rather unfortunate legacy to carry forward. “Howard was a dear friend, one of the dearest, but...he needed someone to worship him and I needed a man I could look up to. Therein lay our problem.”

It was a blunt statement for a blunt woman and she seemed to accept it ready enough. “Perhaps he did it as a gift to a friend, then...one he didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to.”

Guilt rose with the other woman’s words, and they were true enough. She hadn’t bothered to even say goodbye to him that night at his own party. She’d been so overwrought with Daniel’s proposal and he’d been in his element, she hadn’t bothered him. She hadn’t said goodbye to Mr. Jarvis and his wife, to Angie, to anyone. It all felt horribly selfish on this side of the timeline.

“It was terribly generous of him, I will say that.”

Hill’s sympathy was surprising, a trait she’d not seen in the woman till now. “He cared enough to leave something so you wouldn’t be left flat when you got here. No one else believed him, but that didn’t mean he didn’t take care of it. And hey, you still have investments that pay out very nice dividends. You could just not work a day for the rest of your life...but I don’t think you’d be as thrilled with that.”

“The idea of an idyllic retirement gardening wasn’t one I was ever fond of, no.” She considered her mother’s own garden, the one she lovingly tended in Hempstead. “What about housing?

Hill clearly had already thought of that as her answer was immediate. “We’ve secured an apartment for you in Hell’s Kitchen, not far from here, overlooking Lincoln Center.”

She had no idea what Lincoln Center was and only nodded by way of response. “Temporary housing?”

“Yours as long as you want it. SHIELD owns the entire building, we use it for our full time operations staff who live in the city. As this is a secondary headquarters, most of our team here come and go with only a few staying on a more permanent basis.”

“Secondary? Where is the main headquarters?”

“DC, the Triskelion. When we get you up and running, we will have to show you the place.” A beep sounded as a light blinked in the woman’s right ear, the device she called an “earpiece” apparently warning her someone was trying to get a hold of her. Peggy politely busied herself with the file in front of her as Hill clicked a button in the earpiece and began talking, half of a phone conversation that she could listen to, but chose not to.

This brave new world she wandered into and all the wonders in it. She sighed, considering everything she would have to catch up on. The technology alone was terrifying, everything from the sleek modern cars they drove to the phones that they spoke to each other on, and she didn’t want to think about the computers that were ubiquitous to modern living. Hill had joked her three-year-old nephew could use a tablet better than she could and the other woman had grown up with these technological marvels coming at her all the time. What hope had a woman from the 1940s? The television, at least, had made some sense, as she had grown up with the radio and cinema and had seen television in its infancy, but the sheer amount of televised information had been overwhelming! Channels for news, for sport, for films, for children’s animation, it had been dizzying. For not the first time, she wondered if her impulsive jaunt into the future with Lang had been such a good idea.

“Right!” Hill signed off whatever call she was on and eyed Peggy, a hint of concern flickering across her otherwise stoic face. “That was word your place is ready. You can move in this afternoon, if you like.”

She blinked mildly at the other woman. “You do move rather quickly, don’t you?”

“I help run one of the largest intelligence and paramilitary networks in the world, I don’t have time to get caught up in red tape.” She tapped against her tablet, unbothered at Peggy’s amazement. “Imagine if you would have had me back in the day.”

“I’d have killed to have someone like you, if nothing else to just have another female presence in the office.” Peggy was privately pleased the old boy’s club that had run everything after the war had given way to common sense and other perspectives. She considered with brief reflection Whitney Frost and her twisted, angry ambition. Perhaps she, like Peggy, had been too ahead of her time. What she could have done in the future, had she been able to jump forward, as Peggy had.

“I’m sending an agent to escort you over there now. We can at least get you settled while I work out the other details of your re-entry into human society.”

Peggy found she didn’t care as long as it meant being set free into this strange world she found herself in. “Not that I dislike your company, Deputy Director, but it would be nice to not feel like a prisoner in the very agency I helped to start.”

She at least smirked openly at that, a rare open display of emotion. “Wait till you see what we’ve got for you. I think you’ll see I’ve made up for a few days of inconvenience.”

That was an understatement.

Within the hour, she found herself in perhaps the nicest flat she had ever seen in her entire life. Not that she had grown up hard off, her family owned a nice home, she had been sent to a public school considered to be of a high quality for ladies of her age and class, and had wanted for little, even as the rest of the world sank into financial depression. She hadn’t known true privation till the war, and even then she had spent a good deal of time in America where the rationing was not as severe and bombs of London were very far away indeed. Still, as an adult woman she had never had a nice flat to call her own till she was made a director for SHIELD.

This apartment still made it feel shabby by comparison. The building itself was tall and gorgeous, complete with a door man waiting at the front when the agent, a young woman by the name of Cassandra Kam, had let her in to show the place. It was light and airy inside, with marble floors and recessed lamps far brighter than anything they used in her day. The future clearly liked things brighter and far more simple, a look that she appreciated after years of making do in cramped, musty boarding houses and second hand rentals.

The place itself was controlled, like everything seemingly, by a computer, requiring a thumb scan to even get in. She wasn’t sure what a scan even was until Agent Kam explained the bar of light taking a photograph of her thumb and somehow keeping the data inside it’s memory, which Peggy had decided must be the equivalent of the computer’s brain by the way people spoke of it. She was then ushered into a flat that was big enough to house a family of six in its depths, fully furnished, much to her relief. She wouldn’t have known where to start. As it was she was already overwhelmed with the modernist furniture, to her eyes at least, and the array of soft colored walls, a contrast to the tired wallpaper of the many places she had lived in during her stay in New York thus far - Howard’s tasteful decorated townhome notwithstanding. Kam dragged her gapping from the large living area, with it’s views of Lincoln Square and the aforementioned Lincoln Center, to the kitchen that was filled with shining steel and granite, through a den area with a fireplace and into a master bedroom with a bath that was large enough to swim in. She had blinked at all of it and was told that this unit had been requested just for her by Director Fury.

She wasn’t sure she should be grateful for it or not.

After perusing the master bedroom, which was the size of her previous apartment with a bed that looked like a football pitch made of marshmallow, to the kitchen with enough appliances to make her feel overwhelmed, Kam had her sign documents on the strange tablet she carried - all with her finger, which hardly seemed legal, but so far this world was a strange place. She then assured Peggy that all paperwork would be sent to her email - whatever that was - showed her how to use the strange light panel in the main areas to control things like lights, temperature, and security, and then wished her luck in her new place.

“I can’t tell you what an honor it has been, Director Carter, just to meet you,” she gushed, clearly thrilled in a way Peggy little understood.

“I...well, thank you.” Already overwhelmed, Peggy nodded politely, eyeing the bottles of wine in the shining, brushed steel fridge set aside for just that purpose. “I may call on you just to...you know, figure all of this out.”

“I know, this has to be overwhelming!” The other woman waived a well-manicured hand in a generic way to encompass the flat...and well everything, Peggy supposed.

“Just a bit.” Where to begin even explaining that. “Are everybody’s homes so...complicated?”

The other woman snorted merrily. “Oh, no...my apartment is out in Brooklyn and isn’t anywhere near this fancy.”

Brooklyn! Peggy’s heart swelled at that. “I don’t know if I wouldn’t prefer yours over mine.”

Kam shrugged, seemingly getting it. “I mean, yeah, it’s a lot to take in. Frankly, the fridge alone is terrifying, but if you need any help, give me a call!” 

Blessedly, she passed over a paper card rather than referring Peggy to a “website”, something she had been referenced to several times over the course of the afternoon. It had the official look of a SHIELD card and Peggy took it gratefully, hoping she would figure out the telephone. She’d been issued one that looked similar to Lang’s but had no blessed idea on how to utilize it.

Kam clearly understood her plight. “Let me see your phone.”

Peggy pulled the device out of her rucksack, still in its box, as the other woman powered it up and walked her through the basics of using it. She kindly even inputted her number and address into a sort of virtual contact book, all with an air of calm reassurance. “If you need anything, even if it’s just someone to talk to...help you figure out how a computer works...I’m here. Subways still work so you can find me. And this button here, if you click on it, takes you to a map that will tell you how to get anywhere.”

Peggy blinked in wide-eyed amazement at that. “Where was that when I was stuck in the wilds of Eastern Europe without a map?”

“I know, right?” She passed the phone back to Peggy’s outstretched. “Seriously, though...I get what it’s like being in a new place with new everything. If you need anything, hit me up, I’m happy to help.”

It was only after Agent Kam left that Peggy realized she might have just made her second friend in this new century.

That evening, as she puttered around the over-large space, she was rather glad for Kam’s kind-hearted gesture. It occurred to her that she was now all alone in a new century, in a city she had known well once upon a time, but which had changed drastically in just a few days for her. She wasn’t sure what to do with herself. She’d unpacked her few belongings, studying critically the clothing she brought, trying to determine how unfashionable it would be to wear in this century. She’d paid some attention to what Maria Hill and Cassandra Kam wore, sturdy looking pant suits in dark colors, a far cry from the bright colors Peggy had preferred after her years of wearing the drab olive of the US Army. Still, she had noted not just how many women there were in SHIELD, and in places of leadership and experience, such as Hill, but how their look had melded subtly with the look of the men around them. It was complicated, she realized, how the obviously feminine now melded into the masculine, both removing the femininity from those women in the workplace while giving them clearance to be in it. It was a strange dichotomy, but it at least was a world away from the environment she had just left behind.

The shower had been a marvel, a luxury she at least hadn’t felt overwhelmed by. For all that it had these modern, electronic controls, she’d figured it out readily enough and had been delighted to find multiple kinds of shower heads with all manner of sprays. She amused herself for long minutes, trying different ones, settling on one called “tropical rain” before trying out the products thoughtfully provided and smelling luxurious. Frankly, the idea of being clean and in her own pajamas after several days in SHIELD custody was divine, and she indulged in it as she wandered the stocked kitchen, attempting to decide on what to even eat. As kind hearted as Hill and Kam’s gesture of a fully stocked larder was, she didn’t have the heart to admit to either of them that the kitchen was a strange and foreign place to her, but she at least found the makings of a sandwich which would sustain her for the evening. That and a glass of wine sufficed to bolster her as she attempted to use the tablet provided.

Fifteen minutes later, she gave up. The foreign bit of technology seemed friendly enough to use, but the many bright buttons - apps as Kam had called them - meant little to her, and short of one that seemed to show some sort of film, she couldn’t figure the rest out. Frustrated, she tossed it aside, staring at the glittering and shining apartment that was now hers...beautiful and quite empty and lonely. In mild frustration she wandered from her perch at the kitchen’s island to stare at the glass window that led onto a balcony that overlooked the frigid city. It was far too cold to be standing outside this high up, but she rather wished she could, to hear the sounds of the cars below, smell the air, and know that this was real, that all of this had happened, and that she hadn’t dreamed it all. Honestly, as overwhelmed as she felt, she wasn’t half-sure she wasn’t living in some Wizard of Oz -esque fantasy land.

A bell chimed and it took her several long moments to realize that it was the doorbell and that someone was wanting to see her. Thus far only a few of SHIELD operatives knew about her and her existence, and she doubted Fury had shared her address far and wide. Outside of the kind but mostly hapless Juan and taciturn Julio, who she still needed to thank for their helpfulness, no one but Hill and Kam in this city knew her. She highly doubted it was the still missing Lang. Carefully, she padded across the carpeted space, stopping long enough to retrieve the weapon that SHIELD gave her back, before glancing out of the peephole in the door.

The woman who stood outside glanced back at the peephole and smiled. Clearly, she was aware enough to know Peggy would be checking there. She didn’t look a threat, but Peggy was cautious in how she opened the door all the same, her right hand hidden behind it as she peeked around to the blonde, whose smile slipped from friendly to thunderstruck in the blink of an eye.

“May I help you?” She tried to plaster on the most polite expression she could manage in the face of her entire world turning upside down.

The woman simply blinked for long moments, her mouth working as she struggled to pull words together. She must be someone Fury told about her presence. The woman finally laughed as she ran a nervous hand through her hair, staring at Peggy as if she’d seen a ghost. “You look exactly like all of your old pictures, you know.”

That caught Peggy off guard as it took her a long minute to process what in the world the woman meant. “You must be my great niece.”

Sharon Carter nodded, eyes round in wonder as she eyed Peggy up and down. “And you must be my hero come to life.”

Hero? She wasn’t so sure she was any of that. “Well, I suppose I should ask you to come in, shouldn’t I?”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy gets to know her great-niece, Sharon.

She was a Carter, there was no denying it, Peggy could pick out pieces of her family in the face of Sharon perched on one of the stools across from her at the marble-topped island. She had Peggy’s mother’s expressive brows, noting how they knit together in thought just as Amanda Carter’s had, but her warm smile was all Harrison, Peggy’s father. It was the eyes, however, that were the dead giveaway, Michael’s dark eyes, simultaneously grave and mischievous. They watched her now carefully as she spun a glass of cool chardonnay in her long fingers, clearly searching for some kind of words.

“When Fury told me you were alive, I didn’t believe it.” Her confession was blunt. She shrugged, flushing as she admitted it. “I mean...you are you...aren’t you?”

“As far as I can tell, though to be honest the last few days have made me wonder.” Peggy had a red, deep and flavorful. She’d changed back into the functional trousers and top she’d worn to this world, uncomfortable meeting a stranger in something as casual as her nightwear. “Perhaps just as shocking as me appearing out of nowhere, alive and whole, is the revelation I had that I had a great-niece living in this world. Your father was young Harry?”

“That would be Dad, yeah.” She smiled fondly, reaching for the ubiquitous phone that everyone seemed to have. “I have pictures, even, from just the other week...Christmas!”

She was scanning across the glass quickly in a manner that made Peggy envious. She finally stopped, tapping on one, much as Lang had, and turning it towards Peggy. “There’s the family for the holidays; Dad, Mom, Aunt Maggie and Uncle Darren, my brothers - Mike and Will - and my sister Ashley. And then there are the spouses and grandbabies and cousins galore, a whole Carter clan!”

A clan of them? Peggy blinked at the small crowd, all gathered on a deck somewhere, bundled against the cold in denim and puffy coats and smiling faces, several with Santa Claus hats on. She picked out Harrison, tall and lean like his father, with Michael’s smile, his hair thin, wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. He very much reminded her of her own father, his namesake and she found her eyes misting as she thought of her Harrison’s dear face and realized how very much she missed him.

“The last time I saw your father he was still just a boy.” She swiped at her eyes, sniffing. “I don’t know if you ever heard the story of your grandfather and what happened with him.”

“Some of it, yeah.” Sharon frowned briefly, glancing down at the phone in her hand. “Dad told us some of it, the rest I got from SHIELD when I joined. I know about him being presumed dead for years, that he was involved in a secret program, that it had something to do with the forming of SHIELD.”

“That’s some of it,” she admitted, too tired and heart sore to get into the particulars. “I’m afraid your grandfather and I had something of a falling out. Not that I didn’t care, just...it was complicated.”

“Considering you thought him dead and then found out he was lying to you, no, I kind of get that.” Sharon smiled, shrugging. “I mean, at least when you jumped through time you sent a note first.”

Peggy could only laugh. It had only been days ago for her. For Sharon and the rest it had been decades. “I hadn’t said anything about jumping through time.”

“No, you hadn’t. Frankly, most of the family believed you had gone on a secret mission, one you knew was dangerous. When you didn’t come back...well, they assumed the worst.”

That stung more than Peggy wanted to admit. “I suppose your grandfather and I were alike in that.”

Perhaps she had been unfair to her brother in the end.

Far from seeming angry, Sharon appeared to be far more philosophical about it all. “I suppose it is a lot easier to explain death in the line of duty than time travel. In the end, it’s not so different. Honestly, I don’t even know if anyone ever knew the time travel angle. Grandpa might have, I know he was involved in searching for you, but when his mother asked him to stop, they had you declared dead. I think Howard Stark was the only one who believed you would come back someday. I only found out about that after I joined.”

“Howard’s unending faith in me.” Peggy shot her niece a watery smile before pulling from her wine glass to settle her nerves. “It’s that more than anything that led to SHIELD. He was the one who fought for me to form it and lead it. He was a good friend...better than I thought he was.”

Sharon seemed to understand, tactfully looking for a way to change the subject. “So, anyway, this will be a crazy story to try and explain to Dad and Aunt Maggie. Surprise, your long lost aunt is alive and well and looks like my age.”

That was a conversation Peggy did not envy her niece. “I wonder if they even remember me.”

“Oh, they do...or at least Dad does. You were a figure in many of my bedtime story adventures, you see. You were my favorite! I don’t know how many of the stories were true, but I took them all as gospel. Did you really take on Stalin single-handedly, all by yourself?”

Peggy had been sipping at her wine and nearly snorted it up her nose, spluttering into the glass and coughing at Sharon’s impish smirk. “I most certainly did not! I never met the man! Don’t tell me that was a story!”

“Figured that was one of Dad’s wilder ones, probably along with Aunt Peggy going to Mars.”

“Bloody hell, I wasn’t a superhero!” Sharon’s amusement with the idea only served to make Peggy more embarrassed. “What sort of stories were you all told?”

“Those were the sillier stories, I think the ones Dad made up because I wouldn’t go to sleep and he was desperate.”

“Global politics and espionage is appropriate bedtime fair?”

“That was Dad’s jam, so I suppose so. I didn’t think anything of it! I was seven and thought the idea of an aunt who was a spy was perhaps the most cool thing that could happen to a little girl ever!” She laughed with faintly abashed nostalgia. “I don’t know, it was the 90s and women as heroes was starting to be a thing, and I got to brag to all my school friend’s my Aunt Peggy founded SHIELD and punched Nazis in the face. You were quite the feminist icon.”

Something of that old hero worship still glowed on the face of Sharon even after all these years. Peggy found herself a bit at odds living up to it. “I don’t know if the real me could measure up to those impossibly high standards, I’m afraid. After all, a few days ago I listened to a mad man and jumped through time and ended up here. Doesn’t sound terribly responsible.”

“No, but it sounds about on par for the Agent Peggy Carter who went to Mars.”

Whether it was her overwrought emotions, the insanity of the whole situation, or the image of the boy she once knew growing up to be a man making up such ridiculous stories, she couldn’t tell, but the very notion caused something in Peggy to crack. Hysterical peels of laughter burst out of her as Sharon joined her in helpless giggles, dissolving onto the granite top, burying her head into her arms. It was long moments before either of them could pull their composure together enough to string words together, and even when they did they only managed to start laughing again.

“I just...why Mars?”

“I don’t know, it just sounds cool when you are seven!” Sharon finally got herself together enough to wipe her eyes on a paper napkin from a holder in the island’s center. “Oh, God...I miss being a kid.”

“You and me both.” Peggy snorted, holding up her wine glass in silent tribute. “It was far easier back then, let me tell you.”

Sharon beamed as she raised her own glass to clink to Peggy’s. “I will need stories...Grandpa stories! I want the good stuff, the things Dad doesn’t know.”

“I will have plenty of those for you. I’ll have to regale you with how I learned to drink whiskey, which was all Michael’s fault, and made me so sick I thought Mother would kill him for sure.”

“I can believe that,” she snickered, sipping her wine.

All of this brought to mind the one question that had been niggling at Peggy since she let her brother’s granddaughter into her new flat. It was the first thing nearly every American noticed about her, including Juan the other day. It was the first thing she noticed about Sharon when she started to speak. “Your accent is American. When did the family leave Britain?”

Sharon looked as if she had expected this sooner rather than later. “Grandpa, actually. When you disappeared, Howard Stark took nominal charge and he transferred him over from London. He worked at Camp Lehigh for years. It’s where Dad and Maggie mostly grew up. He became the division chief in New York when all the operations began moving down to DC and retired just after they finished the Triskelion. He and Grandma went back to England after that, became old, quaint English people.”

Peggy knew without asking they were no longer alive. “How long have they been gone?”

“Grandpa died about five years ago, Alzheimer’s. His brain just..faded. It happened quickly...too quick. I visited over the summer before my senior year of college and he was just starting to get really bad. Kept thinking I was you, funnily enough. He was gone before Christmas. Grandma hung on for another couple years, but she died in her sleep. They are buried by your parents.”

Peggy had never properly sorted things out with her brother. She hadn’t wanted to, honestly, hurt and angry with his lies and deception. She’d stuck him in the fledgeling London office more to keep him safe and out of trouble where she could keep an eye on him, but she had only returned a handful of letters, mostly couched in messages to her mother. Now he was gone and she would never really be able to hash it out with him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to see him again.”

Sensing the mood had shifted to the morosse yet again, Sharon clearly decided to lighten it up. “He’d be glad you got here safe, and in this crazy world we have. How are you holding up with the technology?”

Peggy at least managed a faint, wry smile. “I’m terrified of the tablet they gave me, I haven’t tried the phone, the television is frightening, and I don’t even know what that thing is!” She pointed to the silver, square appliance hanging over the six-burner gas range.

“A microwave oven?”

“Yes, that! You have a regular oven below it. What does it do?”

“I don’t know, I use mine mostly for reheating leftovers and making popcorn,” Sharon replied, standing to wander over it. “Basically, don’t put anything metal in it, as that can cause a fire. Also, if you have a frozen dinner you put in there, read all the instructions thoroughly, because I’ve melted more than one of those plastic dishes.”

Peggy threw up her hands. “If modern people can’t use their own appliances, what hope do I have?”

Sharon was pressing the numbers on the front face, apparently they were buttons, causing beeping noises as it lit up and began to hum. “I’ll have to show you. It’s super easy, I was working one of these when I was five.”

Peggy sensed a resource standing right in front of her. “All right, what about that thing? The shiny cabinet with the racks inside?”

Sharon found that descriptive funny. “That’s a dishwasher, I know they had those back in the day.”

“Not that I could have ever afforded one.” Peggy eyed it warily. “I imagine I’ll have to have help using this, too.”

“You’ll get it soon enough. Is SHIELD going to give you a crash course on any of this at some point?”

“You heard they recruited me, then?” Peggy figured Fury must have told her.

“Only makes sense, after all, you wouldn’t have come here without a reason and you are the founder of SHIELD. You are valuable just on that alone, and I can’t see Alexander Pierce being keen on letting someone of your stature get away.”

“And who is he when he’s at home,” Peggy queried, having not heard Pierce’s name come up yet in the various SHIELD conversations she had.

“Former director of SHIELD, now he sits on the World Security Council, it’s basically international government oversight for SHIELD.”

She hadn’t had one of those in her day. She filed that neatly away. “So this Pierce oversees Fury then?”

“More or less, they have a history together from Fury’s days in the CIA. When Pierce joined SHIELD, he brought Fury over too, installed him in Los Angeles. When Pierce got booted up, so did Fury.”

Peggy considered this as she thought of her meeting with the man days before. “Do you trust either of them?”

Sharon was clearly smart...very smart. She narrowed her eyes at Peggy’s question. “Do you think they aren’t?”

“I’m merely asking for an insider’s opinion! You have been here, you know them. You tell me!”

“Know them is a strong word.” She slouched against the far counter. “Fury is at his heart an operative. I know it sounds weird, but there's something about that at least I trust. I think he may do crazy, even questionable things, but his eye is always on the greater good and in that much I trust him, even if he lives in the morally gray area. Pierce, on the other hand, is a politician, it’s why he sits on the council. He’s well respected in the intelligence and military communities, his background means he’s built up close ties with many of them. He’s forward thinking and global minded and he’s got trust with a lot of very powerful figures out there.”

There was hesitancy in her niece’s words, something not yet spoken. “I sense a ‘but’ in all of this.”

Sharon merely grinned at Peggy’s statement, impressed she sussed it out. “But...there are some who say he’s a two-face, Machiavellian, power-grabbing son-of-a-bitch. Not in public, mind you, but yeah there are many who haven’t liked the direction he’s taken SHIELD in the last ten years. They’ve gone from being a global security and intelligence agency into being the world’s peacekeepers trying to ‘safeguard democracy.’ There are many who feel that is the wrong direction it should take.”

Not knowing enough of the situation, Peggy wasn’t sure she could comment on it. “How do you feel about it?”

Sharon became far more indecisive here. “The world has changed a lot since the 1940s. The Nazis are gone, HYDRA is gone, the Soviet Union is gone. The US is the one global superpower that remains and that can go either way. I get that there are bigger threats than ever out there, ones that endanger people and could cause real harm, but...I sometimes worry.”

“About what?”

The other woman hesitated, frowning down at her bare feet against the ash-gray wood floor. It clicked with Peggy just how politically sticky a situation Sharon might be finding herself in with her position at SHIELD. She was young, very young, around Peggy’s own age and without the years and experience of war Peggy brought to the table. She was a legacy agent with SHIELD, the great-niece of one of its founder, the granddaughter of one of its section heads, she could well imagine the name of Carter perhaps opened doors to her that wouldn’t be opened to others, and yet, she was a smart, capable agent in her own right who yearned to prove herself outside of the shadow of the Carters who came before her. She carried with her the legacy of SHIELDs beginnings. There would be many, perhaps even Pierce or Fury, who would want someone like Sharon to stand by their decisions if nothing else to show continuity with the ideals of SHIELD from its roots.

“Sharon,” Peggy murmured softly. “I’m fairly safe to tell. After all, I just literally walked into this world just days ago. What investment do I have?”

“Perhaps more than you know,” Sharon replied. “Look, I know my grandfather’s story, you know it too. The whole idea surrounding SHIELD was that it was supposed to be above the games of nationalism and politics, that it wasn’t owned or controlled by one single entity or global interest trying to play it’s own games. It was supposed to be a truly global network, and yet now that the US is the only kid on the block in terms of superpowers, I feel that SHIELD is really just becoming more and more an extension of their personal interests. Whoever America deems a threat is suddenly who is a threat. I don’t know if I’m okay with that.”

Michael left a long legacy indeed. “And yet you're still here.”

“I am still here.” She sighed, wrapping arms around her middle. “Honestly, this is the only job I’ve wanted since I was a little girl. When I told Grandpa I wanted to go into SHIELD, he was...so proud. He said you would be thrilled. I went in thinking I could be a hero like the two of you. Now...I don’t know.”

So that was the state of things. Peggy mulled it over, considering. If this was the case, SHIELD was a far cry from what she, Howard and Philips started all those decades ago. Where had it gone off the rails? How had it happened? And what was more, what role did Fury and this Pierce have for her in it?”

“Do you know anything about an ‘Avengers Initiative’?” Peggy eyed her niece and her empty wine glass, deciding to fill it again.

The name didn’t appear to ring any bells for Sharon. “No, not that I’ve heard of. Why?”

“Fury brought it up to me. It’s something he wants me working on.”

“The name is a bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

Peggy reached past where Sharon stood to the wine fridge where they had stowed the opened bottle of white earlier. “Fury strikes me as being a bit dramatic himself. After all, he swaggers about with a dark coat and an eye-patch like some sort of pirate out of an Errol Flynn film.”

“Errol Flynn! That’s a blast from the past! You are a product of the 1940s!”

Peggy made a face as she poured more wine into Sharon’s outstretched glass. “I’m rather fond of his films, though the man himself was horrible! Still, he could be entertaining.”

“We seriously need to update your popular culture references.” Sharon’s eyes lit up as they flickered beyond to the living area with it’s squashy couches and the giant, flat black panel of glass that lined the far wall above the fireplace. “Have you tried the television yet?’

Peggy put the wine back, snorting. “I told you it terrified me, so no.”

Her niece's mind was calculating quickly. “How about I teach you how to use it and in exchange you let me pick one piece of modern media to introduce you to.”

Peggy wasn’t sure she liked the gleeful gleam in Sharon’s eyes. “Am I going to hate it?”

“I don’t know, you’ll have to see it and find out.”

She gave in, if nothing else because it saved her from spending an evening in this new, strange, and overwhelming place by herself. “All right, but if I hate it, I get the right to put a stop to it.”

“Deal,” Sharon stuck her hand out to shake on it. Peggy took it firmly, deciding already she rather liked her newfound niece...her newfound family.

“Now, let’s see if they stocked any popcorn in this joint,” Sharon muttered, opening cabinets.

Peggy saw her evil plan instantly. “So you can use this microwave contraption?”

“Just like driving, the best way to learn is to just do it, right?”

Peggy could only smile and shake her head as Sharon dug through one of the cabinets. “That sounds like something Michael used to say.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, there is a personal mental canon I am working on with the Carters that I wish I had written and never have, involving Michael, some nefarious goings on he was participating in that was part of the reason Thompson was shot, and a family thrown in to boot. This story insisted on being written first, so there you go. We will visit it someday. For now, I'm enjoying having these two together in a room.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy and Sharon have a conversation about the world as it is now.

“How is it that you have never heard of Jimmy Choo? Christian Louboutin?”

Peggy stared back at Juan Machado’s outraged expression with the same sort of even display she had once used on agents in her SSR days. “I can’t say I’ve kept up on the latest trends.”

“That is clear given your outfit, though, I got to say that retro look does rather suit you.” He eyed her blue suit up and down as Sharon behind him quietly choked on her frankly overpriced coffee. “What kind of assignment do spies have you on that has you dressing like you walked out of a war propaganda poster?”

“Classified, you know that.” Peggy smiled sweetly as Juan accepted this blithely, much to Peggy’s relief and Sharon’s approval. “Your card said you work in fashion design and while I’m looking for simple I thought you could at least help. Besides, I owe you lunch for helping me out of my situation last week.”

“Oh, please, that was me just being neighborly.” Juan waived it off. As it turned out, he did indeed work in the area of SHIELD’s Times Square offices, which was perhaps why he recognized it. He worked for a small costume firm as an in-house designer aspiring to be on his own someday, and clearly he understood modern fashion far more than Peggy did.

“Well, neighborly or not, it was just the help I needed and I have some time to put some of my affairs in order and thought I could avail myself of your assistance.”

“And help her reacquaint herself with what’s going on...being that she’s been out on a mission for a while,” Sharon helpfully popped in, smoothly filling in Peggy’s back story. “Say, did you really work on _Spring Awakening_ , because I loved that show! I have such a crush on Jonathan Groff!”

“You and me both,” Juan scoffed, his attention easily diverted by Sharon rambling, a tactic Peggy recognized in an instant and was grateful for. Her niece knew what she was doing with this sort of work and Peggy had to admit she was rather relieved to have stumbled on to Michael’s granddaughter. In the few days of their acquaintance Sharon had helped walk Peggy through the complexities of her new life, talking her through the technology of her own apartment, the wonders of modern finances, and the ever new layers of ridiculousness of the New York City transit system. She would be weeks at figuring most of this out, that she knew, but some of the panic of her impulsive decision began to subside, knowing she had at least one person in this world in her corner. She quite realized that was part of why Fury had sent Sharon to see her, to give Peggy someone in this world to hold her hand, but it was still a gesture that hadn’t gone unnoticed. Fury wanted Peggy settled and not at loose ends, perhaps because she would more easily go along with whatever he had planned if she felt more in control of her life. He wasn’t wrong in that. Not for the first time since she unceremoniously ended up in his lap, Peggy had to both admire and wonder about the sharp mind and cunning reasoning behind Nick Fury and his purpose.

They wandered to a restaurant that was all “farm-sourced, organic,” whatever that meant. Peggy was learning that unlike the post-war, processed pallet that she was used to, modern people were particular about food in ways she hadn’t ever considered. Food culture was an obsession with them, particularly foods from other parts of the world, and there was a fixation on how things were grown or made, and where they came from and the process of making them. Considering the cooking of food was a mystery to Peggy, akin to how Howard made most of his creations, it was a bit surprising to see how the modern world took their cuisine so seriously. They had entire television channels just about cooking, an idea that Peggy had laughed at till Sharon made her watch two hours of a cooking competition using items made from what appeared to be the pantry.

“So how are you two related?” Juan broke into her thoughts, shifting the subject on her once again.

Peggy blinked, having not really considered what to say to that, but Sharon saved her once again by improvising on the spot. “Ahh, she’s technically my aunt!”

“No!” Far from horrified, Juan looked incredulously delighted. “You two look like you're the same age!”

“Oh, it’s true. Peggy here was a bit of a late-in-life surprise.” Sharon spilled it so smoothly, Peggy almost believed it herself. “We grew up on other sides of the Atlantic, but being about the same age we stayed close.”

“And you both ended up working for the same place! That’s crazy!”

“Ah, Peggy here got into it first, I just followed.” Sharon winked at her. 

Peggy following her lead easily enough. “Uh, yes...I got in at the London office. I made it sound so glamorous Sharon here decided to follow suit.”

“You two are crazy, real life spies!” Juan was dazzled by the romanticism of the prospect.

“Not everyone who works at SHIELD is a spy, you know,” Sharon popped that particular bubble with ease. “Some of us are just low level analysts, doing very basic, boring data work.”

Peggy followed her cue. “Or just doing very above board investigations into things people have been up to that they shouldn’t.”

Some of the shine seemed to fade for Juan, his expression falling into a disappointed pout. “They sound like boring regular jobs.”

“I hate to break it to you, but yeah, they are boring regular jobs!” Sharon took his arm as they wandered into the their intended restaurant. “I mean, I only wish my job was like _The Bourne Identity_.”

Another popular culture reference she would have to learn, Peggy noted. The afternoon was full of new things she would have to learn. She trailed behind her niece and her new friend through a myriad of stores, more than she wanted to think about. For Peggy, only days removed from the decades of depression and war, the sheer decadence of the world she stepped into was overwhelming. Beyond the clothing, which she felt had turned upside down on her overnight, was simply just the social order of the world that she struggled put together. She was always aware, as a woman, just how hierarchical culture was and just how much she was bucking the system by refusing to conform to it. Now as she wandered the shops that her niece and well-meaning new friend dragged her too, she could see on full display around her just the difference that sixty-years made. Women were no longer relegated to shop girls and telephone operators - which were apparently not a thing anymore in this computerized world - and they had roles in corporate life. Nor were they expected to give up lucrative careers once they got married, in fact most married women worked, and there were by far more non-white people joining those ranks as well. Peggy thought of Jason Wilkes, stymied in his work by the color of his skin, and was pleased to see that. And sexuality...that was completely different now.

“And this thing works?” She and Sharon sat exhausted in her sitting room, curled on the cloud soft couches, having bought out what felt like most of New York. Sharon had just explained the idea of a subcutaneous implant used to control women’s menstrual cycles and prevent pregnancies and it sounded more far-fetched to Peggy than even the idea of mankind walking on the moon.

Sharon nodded after a long mouthful of tea. “I’ve been on it since working at SHIELD. Had to have an implant because of the nature of the work means I am not regularly somewhere where I could remember to take a pill.”

“And these pills, implants, they just stop you?”

“Well, depends on what you get. The implants I don’t have to worry about anything at all. And if I want kids someday, I can take it out.”

To Peggy, who’d had to deal with the hardships of managing feminine hygiene during the war and the squeamishness of 1940s men about all things regarding the female reproductive system, that sounded divine. “And it’s not harmful?”

“Well, I don’t know if I could say that with certainty, but I am not so worried that I don’t do it.” She shrugged, unconcerned as she sipped at her tea. “I’ve only been on the implant a few years, but I went on the pill when I was a teenager, mostly because I was an athlete. Besides, Mom wasn’t about to let me go to college without having some sort of protection.”

The idea that Sharon’s mother would have just assumed a level of sexual activity out of her teenage daughter had also been shocking. How times had changed! “When I was 19 my mother was lecturing me on how good girls keep it together till after the altar so you can make sure not to embarrass anyone at the wedding.”

“And how well did you follow that advice?”

“I usually didn’t listen to a thing my mother had to say, so you can imagine how well I followed it.” She hadn’t been ashamed of it, but she hadn’t been stupid either. “I was fighting a war, the same as everyone else. The old rules and social peccadillos sort of went out the window the minute that we were fighting for survival.”

“And here I had this vision of you as my strong, confident, kick-ass, purely virginal maiden aunt!”

“Yes, well I was single and young in wartime, anyone who believed that would be an idiot.”

“You’ve just blown my whole mind! Judging from what my mother said, before the 60s girls who had sex before marriage were burned at the stake or something.”

Peggy snorted into her tea cup, recalling all too well the shame Miriam Fry heaped on the heads of young women ho dared to sneak a beau in to stay overnight in their room. “I could see where you get that impression, considering the stories I grew up with. There were always whispers about that one maiden aunt who had a mysterious illness years before that no one would talk about, but which meant she had to be sent away for a year.”

“Jesus, I thought they were kidding about that. Now at days they have television shows about unwed teenagers who got pregnant.”

“Your world is a strange place and not really because of that.”

“Don’t I know it,” Sharon replied, unperturbed. “So, what do you think of...Juan?”

She’d carefully danced around that subject. Peggy smirked, eyeing her blandly from her corner of the couch, curled around her own cuppa. “What about him, that he’s of Puerto Rican descent or that he’s homosexual?”

Sharon flushed but didn’t back down. “Either...both...I don’t know, I mean you are from the 1940s, you are the prime demographic for a certain way of thinking that perhaps would lead to embarrassing comments being made at family dinners.”

Peggy had to wonder about her nieces assumptions of the world before her own memory. “You do know we had plenty of both in the 1940s?”

“And yet you were still amazed that bullet bras and girdles were not a thing.”

“No, I was amazed that scrap of satin and lace on the mannequin was called ‘underwear’ and couldn’t understand how anyone would willingly wear it.”

“Whatever, the point is this is a different world with different cultural mores. Sex, race, gender, those are all evolving and have evolved a lot. I just...know it’s a lot to throw at you in a week, walking from one world and into another.”

“You aren’t wrong,” Peggy acknowledged, rubbing a sore foot absently. “I think more than the cultural pieces is just the way the world works. I’m asked to come into a game that I am good at, but it’s like I got up from the table and came back to all the rules being changed. I left a world that was dividing along Soviet and United States lines and came back to a world where that has all played out and new players are on the board, with new problems and demands and questions. I don’t understand it at all.”

“Is SHIELD planning on bringing you up to speed?”

Peggy had heard from Maria Hill the day before, the first time she had used her new phone. “They have me in training courses next week. I feel worse than a child right now, having to go back into the classroom, relearning maps, political alignments...and let’s not discuss having to learn things like email.”

“You’ll wish you hadn’t,” she teased. “I suppose it would be hard, though. I grew up with it, so I don’t know any different.”

“Good, I know who to ask for pointers.”

Sharon set down her tea on the end table carefully. “So what is this ‘Avengers Initiative’ to Fury and why does he have you on it?”

Fury hadn’t told her then. Peggy noted that curiously. He clearly was keeping her and the project he wanted Peggy on close to his chest. “It’s the reason I came forward in time, actually. It’s a project...a big one. I don’t know how much more I can say than that.”

Sharon was enough of a field agent to understand the idea of “need to know,” but that didn’t mean she had to like it. “I suppose that means you can’t tell me why you did it, then? Why you left everything behind to appear here and now?”

The only piece that surprised Peggy was that Sharon had enough restraint to wait this long to ask her that. “Most of it, yes. Like much of my life, it’s classified.”

“Most of it? What about the rest of it?”

“Because a father asked me to.” Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she would never have said yes had Scott Lang not pleaded on his daughter’s behalf. “Because he didn’t want her to grow up without her family. I saw one too many children left behind without families after the war...one too many children who didn’t make it. Perhaps...I don’t know, perhaps it was because one gets so tired of people dying in other people’s wars. This is how I thought I could help.”

It wasn’t the whole reason. Peggy wasn’t quite willing to divulge the truth about Steve Rogers to Sharon just yet, but it was enough of the reason to be mostly honest with her. For all that she was family, she was still an unknown quantity, and Peggy wasn’t sure how she would take her private hope that Lang was right and that Steve was alive out there somewhere. It certainly wouldn’t be easy for a great niece, raised on the sadness of her disappearance, to hear she walked away from everything in part due to the fact that Steve was here.

Sharon broke their companionable silence, stretching as she regarded the time on her functional watch, one that was somehow connected to a SHIELD network, whatever that meant. “Not to cut our time short, but I’m needed back in DC in the morning and I’m on the first SHIELD flight down. Fury gave me the weekend, but back to my regular analyst desk in the morning. Will you be okay on your own?”

“It’s not the first time I’ve been on my own in New York,” Peggy cut back, tartly.

Sharon was unphased. “It’s the first time you’ve been left on your own in the modern era. I worry you will not know how to pay for things.”

“I figured out how credit cards worked, thank you.” That hadn’t been as hard as she thought, but it had confused her, the idea that there was no real money transaction going on. “It’s the cell phone I’m most worried about.”

“You should spend time with Juan, he loves his!” Sharon clearly was enamoured with Peggy’s unlikely benefactor. “Besides, get out in the city to see how it’s changed. Check out your old haunts, see what’s left and what isn’t. Take in some Broadway shows! That’s what everyone else does when they are in town.”

Peggy felt it was slightly ironic and perhaps tad humorous that a city that she had called home off and on again for several years would be strange to her once again. “I’ll have to note that.” She paused, considering the strange machine called a computer laptop that sat ignored on the coffee table where Sharon had placed it the day before. “Could you do me a favor when you return.”

“If I’m able,” Sharon replied with all the carefulness that a proper SHIELD agent should.

“When you get back and can you pull the files, I’d like to see the ones on people I knew. I’d like to...know at least. Know what happened to them, what their lives were like...what I left behind.”

Sharon hesitated only a second before nodding in agreement. “I can see what I can do. I assume you would like to see Howard Stark, the Howling Commandos, the like?”

“And Howard’s butler...Jarvis was the name. He and his wife were good friends of mine. Then of course there are the old gang, Daniel Sousa, Jack Thompson, any of the old SSR really. Phillips...just...I want to know.” She doubted they would have anything on Angie. She hadn't been tied to anything with SHIELD or the SSR outside of her relationship to Peggy.

Doubt and worry flickered briefly in the other woman’s eyes, but she didn’t waiver in doing it. “I can send you what I can. It will likely be digital, so you’ll have to use this thing.” She tapped the computer on the table before her.

“I will force myself to do it.” Peggy rolled her eyes, but there was wistful sadness in it. “I feel I owe it to them.”

“Sure.” Like with everything in the few days she had her niece there, Sharon agreed with grace and readiness, seeming to roll with the strangeness of this entire situation in a way Peggy wasn’t so sure she could have. “And you know, I’m just a phone call or email away. I’m down in DC, but can catch a flight up or take the train.”

“The train! That’s still running? With this obsession with flight, they still have trains?” It felt strange to find something as familiar as the rail system’s continued existence was a balm on her own time-muddled soul. 

“Didn’t say it was great, but it’s running. Not everything old has gone the way of the dodo. But I’m serious, if you need anything, let me know. Maybe...when you’re ready, you can meet with the family.”

The niece and nephew she had met only briefly and had walked away from to go into the future. Somehow, Peggy wasn’t sure that was going to go at all well. What could she even say to them? “Perhaps...at the very least, I should introduce myself to them. I suppose it would look odd if I didn’t.”

“Well, it looks odd that you are back from the dead, I think we are well past the point of strangeness.” She laughed it off, as if long dead relatives came back everyday. Still, Peggy found she liked her, this unexpected relative. She reminded her in many ways of Michael before the war, before the secrets and the conspiracies, when he had been her much-adored, brilliant, understanding older brother who had always understood her. It was good to have a touchstone, any touchstone, really, in this modern era, something she could hold on to when so many other things were lost.

“I wish I could say that my life will prove to be normal, boring and prosaic,” Peggy murmured as she regarded the cooling dregs of the last of her tea before her with a rueful apology. “But I hate to inform you that my life doesn’t really tend to go anywhere near normal.”

“I’m an agent of SHIELD, if I wanted normal I would have joined the CIA,” Sharon shot back glibly. “I’m glad I’m finally getting to know you.”

“I think the sentiment is the same.” If only Michael could see the young woman his granddaughter had become. Peggy had a feeling that he would be pleased beyond all measure.

Sharon roused, gathering tea things as she moved to the kitchen. “You need any help putting things away? I think we bought enough clothes for several Peggy Carters.”

“No, I’m fine, I can sort through them on my own.” She thought of the bags of shopping dumped in the master bedroom, half of which Juan had convinced her were absolutely essential if she wanted to have any respect in this town. “Honestly, it makes me sad that some things which were so basic in my time are no longer a part of fashion. I wish I had thought to bring my favorite hat.”

“Hat?” Sharon had the water on, rinsing out her mug, having only partially heard what Peggy said.

“Hat, yes, like you wear on your head. I had a lovely red fedora that I rather loved. I had thought to grab it, but it wouldn't fit and it seemed such a shame to crush it.”

Sharon looked thoughtful for long moments. “Perhaps we can find one like it.”

“Oh, I doubt it. I found it in a shop here, an old Stetson model. No one seems to wear things like that anymore.”

“Never hurts to look.” She wandered back to lean against the back of the couch she had been sitting on. “I am sorry you lost so much of everything with this.”

Sharon’s compassion in the moment was heartfelt, but it still stung, catching Peggy as she felt herself tear up for the umpteenth time in the last week. “I made my choice, Sharon, for good or ill I did it. Now I have to figure out how I move forward in this new life.”

“You’ll get it,” Sharon assured her with far more enthusiasm than Peggy felt. “You’re Peggy Carter, you can do anything.”

Scott Lang seemed to think that too. Frankly, she wasn’t sure that both of them weren’t insane for believing that of her. She considered Lang’s cryptic hope that she would help keep a group of disparate people together enough to stop an apocalypse. She had no idea what she was doing or how to even start.

“I seriously hope you are right,” Peggy murmured, less for her own sake than for Sharon, Lang and the rest of the world. If she couldn’t do this...what would it all have been for?


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy talks to friends old and new.

The future, as Peggy was learning, was beyond frustrating. It took her a week to figure out how to manage unlocking her door on her own. The phone was a whole separate matter. She’d figured out how to make calls on it but not how to find messages or to even type on it well, and certainly any of these “apps” everyone was so blessedly fond of. She had tried the laptop and could manage this email protocol, but found it exhausting in the extreme and wondered why modern people subjected themselves to it. They went happily to their laptops and pocket phones, or to the larger versions of them, the tablets, and could be found with their faces buried in them at all times, even while holding whole conversations.

“My younger brother literally walks to school without looking up once, headphones in, face glued to the screen. He nearly got killed crossing the street in front of our apartment. About gave my mother a heart attack.” Cassandra Kam, the agent who had settled her into her new home, had taken to visiting Peggy in her training rooms over lunches, a kindly gesture Peggy knew the other woman meant as way to give Peggy - a stranger in these times - someone to talk to. “Honestly, I don’t think he’s read a real book since he turned six.”

Peggy could only boggle at that as they wandered Time Square during the lunch hour, mostly just people gazing. It was all so different, these crowds, this place. It still felt like Time Square, that much was familiar, but the giant signs that looked so lifelike blazing overhead told her otherwise. She sighed, crumpling a sandwich wrapper and for not the first time since her arrival cursed Lang for getting himself lost...or talking her into this mad scheme.

“How old is your brother?” She glanced towards Kam, who was unapologetically enjoying a hot dog for her lunch.

Kam waited a moment to finish chewing before answering, swiping at mustard on her cheek. “Eighteen, though you’d never know it. He acts like he’s twelve.”

Spoken with only the sort of disdain an older sibling could have for a younger. “Eighteen is still quite young, all things considered.” She knew many young boys in the American army that age, most of whom went off to fight...all of them too young to be doing it.

“I know,” Kam sighed, rolling her lovely, dark eyes in a gesture that Peggy could guess she got from her mother. “That’s what I keep telling myself. He’s the baby, so he gets spoiled rotten for the most part unless his grades slip, then he gets hell for it from the family. Nothing guilts a Chinese kid into behaving more than having all the aunties shaming you on your report card.”

“And does he get bad grades?”

“Not since Mom got him into Midtown Tech over in Queens. The principle over there is married to my cousin, so if Kevin steps a toe out of line it’s up the family gossip chain before he even gets home. Poor kid, he got into Stanford just to get away from the family.”

Peggy chuckled, thinking of Sharon, of the family Peggy now had and the one she had left behind. “I moved to America to be far away from mine. In fairness, England wasn’t precisely in good shape after the war. Most of London was obliterated, a lot of other cities too. Thought I would have better luck here.”

Kam’s look of sympathy spoke to just how much she couldn’t comprehend anything close to the devastation that Peggy saw in the war. “Wasn’t it hard back then, moving out here all by yourself, not knowing anyone?”

“Yes,” Peggy admitted, thinking of that first boat ride across to New York, back when she had still just been a raw SOE agent, before the SSR, Howard Stark, Abraham Erskine and Chester Phillips. “I took a ship over to get to America and had to hope the Germans weren’t going to bomb us. I sailed into New York harbor, not even sure what I would find here. I still remember coming into port into this great, glittering city floating on the water. I won’t lie, it was a gorgeous sight to see, even back then. Makes you realize why so many people immigrated here.”

“My family came through the West Coast,” she offered companionably. “My family was fleeing what was happening back home. They were all intellectuals, and they were killing those, so they fled on foot mostly to Hong Kong, then eventually over here. I think they all just saw California as a safe place to settle and not worry you could get killed.”

Her story, so airly recounted, brought home just what sort of political changes had occurred in the six decades - and two weeks for herself - since she stepped into this new world. “I had hoped that after the war we would have some sort of peace in this world?”

“Peace for who?” Kam snorted before looking apologetic. “See, this is why they have me mostly working operations and not field work. Hard not to have a touch of politics when you are a non-white person seeing the rest of the world, but living in America.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me. You should have heard me back in the day in the SSR.” Peggy had complained many times to Daniel’s sympathetic ear. “It’s why I created SHIELD. Well, Howard and I had the scheme and we talked Phillips into it. We knew that the only way to keep things from escalating was to stand outside of the vested interests of those trying to escalate it.”

“True and that’s why I joined, honestly. Well, that and it was a job.” She finished the last of her meal, chewing and swallowing as she wiped her hands neatly. When she spoke again, it was with just a hint of wry melancholy. “I think we all join SHIELD hoping we can change the world for the better, but I don’t know, we keep seeming to think we can just control all the variables and that if we do we can make it all better somehow.”

“That was certainly Howard’s thinking.” How many nights had they sat up arguing that?

“I never took the great Howard Stark, the champion of freedom of science and industry, to have an Orwellian world view.” At Peggy’s polite confusion, she clarified. “The idea of ‘big brother is watching you’ and all of that. Controlling the life of everyday citizens to ensure some idea of a perfect order.”

“I don’t know if Howard was necessarily for that as much as he was for his idea safety and security, honestly.” Howard had always possessed the nasty habit of believing his intellect so brilliant that his judgement obviously could not be questioned, a misnomer she quelled again and again, often by explaining to him his own serious lapses in judgement. “He had grown up poor on the Lower East side, he saw how hard life could be and how easy it was to lose. I don’t think he ever forgot that part of himself, really, no matter how rich and comfortable he got. The idea of some outside force threatening that terrified him. If Howard was nothing else but a man who liked to control his own destiny and he had a horrible tendency of trying to control everything around him in order to ensure the odds were always in his favor.”

“And you were friends with him?”

Kam’s incredulity surprised her, but then perhaps it shouldn’t. She was a woman who grew up on the legend of Howard Stark, spoon fed the authorized biography and whatever drivel he put out about himself. “Howard could be an ass, but outside of the womanizing, recklessness, and penchant for throwing himself in head first without thinking much of the consequences, he was a good man - or tried to be. I don’t know what he became in the decades after I disappeared.”

The other woman didn’t necessarily contradict this, rather she seemed to mentally take the measure of it, perhaps adding it to her own understanding. “I think that Howard Stark wanted peace, same with SHIELD. I just have to wonder who gets to define that. What does ‘peace’ look like? For my parents and grandparents that looked like the chance to come to America and live their life not hunted down for being smart and educated. For Howard Stark that looked like not having to worry that someone would come and destroy everything you worked to build. I guess it’s something different for everyone.”

Peggy walked quietly beside the petite, pleasant woman beside her, quietly surprised by the fiercely introspective presence underneath the bubbly surface and friendly, helpful demeanor. "I have to say you have pleasantly surprised me today.”

“Well, I couldn’t let that Columbia poli-sci degree go to waste managing property and requisitions for SHIELD.” She waved a hand airly and Peggy privately wondered what the story behind all of that was. “Anyway, what are the big plans for the afternoon? Catching up on 20th century history or working your way through how to manage creating documents.”

Peggy groaned, her head already feeling overfull from all of it. “I sent my first email without sounding like an idiot today, so I suppose that is a small victory. The jury is out on document creation. As for the history, that is easy enough I suppose, if a bit disheartening all together. I suppose it was a bit idealistic to think that one intelligence agency could change the world and make it better.”

“It’s a nice dream,” Kam assured her with a touch of sympathy. “And hey, you did it! Some other people wouldn't have tried. For all the complicated bits, SHIELD does good work. I didn’t mean to rain on the parade. I don’t have enough clearance to know even half the secrets, but I do know of a few things they’ve stopped and prevented, ways they’ve saved all of us. I think society tends to be a bit more complicated than ideas and dreams at times. Humans aren’t just black and white.”

Something that Peggy was coming to understand more and more the older she became. “I’m rather glad I’ve gotten to know you, Agent Kam. Between you and Agent Carter, you’ve helped me get to know this time and place a bit better.”

“Cassandra,” she replied brightly just as they hit the doors of the same lobby that Peggy had stumbled into weeks ago. It took Peggy a moment to remember it was her first name. “Or Cassie, only my parents ever call me Cassandra. I figure we’ve had lunch every day this week, we might as well be on a first name basis.”

“Well, then, if we are on a first name basis it is Peggy. I never liked Margaret, it sounded far to prim and proper for my liking.” She held out her hand for Cassie to take. “And I’m always glad to make a friend.”

“I thought you might be.” Cassie grinned, sighing wearily as they wandered past the plaques with Peggy’s ridiculous picture on them, to the bank of elevators where several others stood, waiting on the lifts as well. More than a few surreptitiously slid curious gazes towards Peggy, then up to the picture on the wall, and back again. She ignored them.

“Believe it or not, I’ve made other friends in my brief time here." Peggy continued the thread of the conversation they were in. "We will have to connect with them soon. I met a young man who works nearby in the Theater District. He and his partner, I think that’s the term he used, were the ones to find me that first day.”

“See, two weeks in and you already have friends! You’ll settle in here nicely!”

Cassandra Kam’s optimism warmed Peggy as she alighted on the top floor where an office had been made available to her for her use. It was a basic one by any standards, white walls, a window that looked out onto a floor of desks all huddled together in uniform matte gray rather than the honey colored wood of the 1940s, but the effect was still the same. The office had been empty from what she had gathered, one that was set aside for visiting senior directors, with only a desk, a small conference table, and a flat, black, glass screen hanging flush against the far wall, one that the technical trainers they sent to walk her through things tended to like to use as they talked her through the various aspects of how to use the technology of today that even children understood. Peggy wasn’t an idiot by any means, and she grasped most of it, but even now she glared at it resentfully as she opened the laptop issued to her, managing with no small amount of pride to turn on the ridiculous thing and find her way to her email with little issue.

She’d scanned through the scant offerings, mostly training modules and a message from Maria Hill responding to Peggy’s request for additional physical training on top of the technological training she’d been receiving. It hadn’t missed her observation just how that had changed in the decades as well. In 1948 few of the agents recruited for the first iteration of SHIELD had the sort of defensive training she saw in the agents in the modern era. Those who had served in the war, of course, had more of a military training than most, and Peggy had counted herself lucky that she had been trained in hand-to-hand tactics in the SOE well before coming to America, but in those earliest years they had been far more interested in getting keen minds and warm bodies in the door than those who were physically fit. She had been wanting to push more of that with their latest recruits, but that had been still months off when she left. Now she looked at the young men and women who handled themselves as agents and was left quietly despairing of even her capabilities. She’d never allowed them to fail, of course, but if her face was still hanging in the bloody lobby below, she felt that she should at least still be able to keep up with the most basic agent in the organization.

Blessedly, Hill had agreed with her and had set up time for her to train in the coming weeks at some place called the Farm, deep in the wilds of West Virginia. The idea of what it was seemed interesting, a cross between a boot camp, like Camp Lehigh, and an intelligence training facility. It far more reminded her of Beaulieu, the so-called finishing school for the SOE. She read through the arrangements Fury’s right hand had quickly made for her, the first travel she would have to make in this new existence of hers. She’d noted the most pertinent information when Sharon’s email popped onto the screen.

_I found what I could. There’s a lot that is still classified, especially for Stark, but the most basic information is there. Let me know if you need anything or just want to talk._

_Sharon_

At the bottom of the missive were several small symbols Peggy had come to know as “attachments”, often a representation of a file folder. She traced her finger along the glass track panel on the laptop, forcing the small arrow to move to the first of the files, that for Dernier. It popped open, more symbols exploding to life, ones that when clicked showed records and reports, dates of his marriage and children, of cases and promotions, injuries, retirements, and eventually his passing. For the next three hours she skimmed through the various files, never digging too deeply, but getting the gist of the lives of the friends she had left behind, the people she had walked away from because Scott Lang had asked her to save the world…and because Steve Rogers lay on the other side of that request.

There was a lot of comfort in most of the files. Most all of them had lived long and productive lives, working with SHIELD well until retirement age. It made her smile to think of brilliant and sardonic Falsworth and sweet, ebullient Dernier had moved on to head the London and Paris SHIELD offices respectively, both aging into graceful, middle-aged gentleman who had settled into prosaic lives after decades of war and conflict. Dugan, for all of his idiocy, had eventually become Deputy Director of Field Operations, essentially Maria Hill’s role, then assumed the mantle of SHIELD director for a decade before a heart attack forced him to retire to Florida, where he lived out his golden years telling his grandchildren of his exploits. Morita stayed as well, delving into communications and technology, championing the growth of the new network systems that were evolving around the world, likely thick in the middle of it alongside Howard. He left to move back to California, working in the growing technology industry until his retirement, a father and grandfather many times over.

The only one who hadn’t stayed in SHIELD in the years after Peggy’s disappearance had been Gabriel Jones. That didn’t surprise Peggy, really, when she thought about it. Gabe had always been more of a scholar than a fighter. He had quietly returned to Howard University in the early 1950’s, finished his degree and went back for more, eventually earning a Ph.D. from Yale. It surprised Peggy even less that he also became a figure in the growing push for racial equality in the United States, a position that perhaps could have cost him much in those days. He became an elder statesman to the movement and in the 1960s accepted a position at Howard University where he remained till his retirement, finally, 10 years ago. While he often consulted with SHIELD he never returned and still lived in Washington DC, the last of the old Commandos to survive.

Those had been the happy stories

Peggy ignored Daniel’s file for the moment, the memory of that night on Howard’s balcony still too fresh and raw, choosing instead to focus on Howard’s thick volume. There was more there than she could read in a sitting, she’d be weeks perusing it, but she got the gist of some of it. He’d helped to guide SHIELD as best he could while running his own company until he was forced to bring other interests in to both to help manage. Running a company had never been Howard’s forte, much less two, but he’d kept them both afloat when they could have easily failed. He’d married a woman who was a socialite, which rather surprised Peggy. She wondered who this Maria Carbonnel had been to catch Howard’s heart and forced him to finally settle down. He’d had his son late in life, and far from retiring to raise a family, he’d thrown himself further into his research and work, though it didn’t state exactly what he was up to. That he died of a simple accident on an icy road seemed almost unreal. Howard had some of the steadiest hands at the wheel she had ever seen, whether it was in the air or on the road, and the idea that a patch of black ice had taken him out seemed both tragic in the extreme and an awful, horrific irony. In the wake of it all, his company and all he built there had been left to his then 21-year-old son, Anthony, who had to figure it all out on his own.

Peggy studied the photo of this man who would be the other centerpiece of the Avengers alongside Steve. If there were any doubt he was Howard’s son, it fled looking at him. He was the image of the Howard she met so long ago at Camp Lehigh, sauntering into a meeting ridiculously late and completely unrepentant. She saw the arrogance there, as well as the ferocious intellect and the swagger Howard always had, but there was also a sensitivity that Howard never quite managed. Something about the glimmer in his dark eyes and the smirk tilting up the goatee on his face said he had a sense of humor that was very Howard like, a certain charm that she could see would make him the same sort of celebrity. How he would end up a superhero of any sort still baffled her.

Heart aching, she set Howard aside to review the Jarvises. Unsurprisingly, their files were far smaller and a good deal more simple. They had remained in Howard’s employ until he died and after that under Tony’s, looking after the young man in the absence of his parents. They had died only recently in the grand scheme of things, Ana some seven years before of cancer, Edwin just a year ago of natural causes. That hurt, knowing how close she had been to seeing dear Edwin again, of assuring him she was all right and alive. It hurt to know he passed away believing she had died before her time.

That thought hit her far harder than she had expected it to.

Peggy wasn’t sure why it was so imperative in the moment, only that it was. Without further thought she shut down the computer in the unused office, grabbed the new coat and hat she’d purchased on her shopping trip with Sharon and Juan, and wrapped herself up in the sturdy wool over the functional business suit she’d worn to the office, the modern kind, dark and practical. Without a word to anyone else, she slipped out of the building.

She’d yet to manage a taxi on her own in the city, but Peggy braved hiring one for the long drive from Midtown to the Bronx, the GPS of the cemetery up on her phone, just as Cassandra had shown her how to do. She could have put it off for a better day, but for Peggy the spectors of the people who had been as close to her as family, people she walked away from, hit too close to home. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked to see what became of them, maybe it was her own folly for digging too deep so soon after arriving, when the memories of them were still new and the specter of them still hung so close in a city where she kept expecting to run into them. She had walked into this new life with her eyes wide opened, even if it had been impulsive. She felt she needed to face the consequences of that decision as much as the benefits, to see what she had lost in the hopes of what she might be able to change.

The cemetary was sprawling, over acres of land, surrounded by the urban spread that seemed to characterize life even outside of the center of the city. The cemetery was the place where the famous and elite of New York once had their final remains buried, an oasis in the concrete and steel around them. Even wandering the large expanse she saw here and there names that were familiar even to her, a foreigner in this land. There was a sort of sad beauty in this place, a lovely park filled with the memories of the dead. It was a mish mosh of expression of loss; an elaborate confection of baroque grief stood beside something more simple but no less poignant memorials to those long gone. She wandered between the monuments, noting stones of people who would have been ancient even in her own time only yards away from newer stones of people who had been born after she left and died far more recently. More than a few died in the years of the war. Peggy couldn’t help but wonder if she had known any of them.

The Stark plot was in the exact middle of the cemetery, which was fitting, considering Howard’s love of being the center of attention. It was situated a bit off from others, but not fenced in, and she wandered to the simple gathering of stones around a squat piece of granite that read “Stark”. Peggy didn’t know much of Howard’s family. He’d been loath to discuss it much outside of the fact that his father had come from upstate to New York to find his fortunes and had failed badly at it. She knew his father had sold fruit at one point, his mother had sewn shirtwaists in one of the sweatshops on the Lower East Side, and he had been a product of a Catholic education till his clear genius had won him a place in a prestigious school where he thrived. Outside of that and his friendship with the known criminal element of his rough neighborhood as a child, she knew very little of his upbringing or of the world that had produced him. She gazed curiously at the single stone that marked the graves of Walter and Elizabeth Stark. They’d lived at least till their son had grown and both had died while he was still young, his mother dying just after Peggy disappeared. She recalled he’d built a house for her upstate and she’d retired happily enough, only sewing for auxiliaries and church charities and not to provide for her son. Perhaps it was more for her and less his father that Howard had buried them in elite company, in a plot he had clearly intended for family.

Just below their stone sat the granite slab for Howard and Maria, so simple she hardly believed it was his. She stooped, regarding it sadly in the damp, blasted grass. He hadn’t been young when he passed, nearly seventy-five at the time of his death. He’d at least lived a full life. She studied the name of his wife, Maria. She had been younger than Howard by nearly twelve years, a fact that amused her more than scandalized her, as she’d have expected him to have shacked up with a much younger chorus girl or movie startlett. What little she had gathered on the woman who had captured her friend’s heart showed Maria was a woman of taste and class, the daughter of a New York Socialite and a very wealthy Italian-American businessman, someone raised in the rarified society that Howard had always privately resented and longed to be a part of. How Howard convinced her to marry him was a mystery, but they had in the 1960s, with Tony arriving several years later. Howard seemed to have been happy with his wife at least, In fact all the scandalous behavior that had posed such a threat to global security just twenty years before seemed to cease. He settled down to SHIELD and his business and had become something of a venerable, respected figure in his old age. Maria must have been quite the woman to illicit that out of him.

She sighed as she brushed away twigs, leaves and other detritus from the stones left there likely by the last snow melt. She placed the small bouquet of lilies she had purchased by Maria’s grave before turning to Howard’s with a sad smile. The breeze picked up and she pulled her coat a bit tighter around her as she tried not to feel foolish, standing there speaking to a piece of granite.

“Hello, Howard.” She smiled, almost hearing his irreverent drawl in her ear, the mark of his Lower East Side upbringing. “I finally came back, just like you always knew I would. I’m sorry I missed you.”

Her words sounded vaguely absurd as she spoke them, as if she had just popped by on an afternoon to say hello and he happened to be out, not twenty years dead and gone. She dug a toe of her serviceable shoes into the muddy ground, feeling nerves she was sure she would never had felt had he been alive and standing there.

“Thank you for everything you did for me, believing the insane story I told you. I knew if anyone would trust it, it was you. Of course, the tidy sum you left for me is appreciated. You didn’t have to do that, you know, I would have managed just fine on my own. I always have.”

Somehow, she doubted she would have won the argument in person.

“Anyway, the modern world is madness, but I am sure you knew that. Computers everywhere, this internet that everyone is perpetually connected to, using it to fling insults and pictures of cats as far as I can tell, but I’ve only been here a few weeks, I’m sure I’ll get used to that.”

Howard like as not would have been in the thick of it all, had he been alive to see it. Chances were high he probably funded a lot of what made the modern world so very connected and fast. He’d always had an eye to the future. She wondered how different his son was.

“I’ve yet to meet Anthony, by the way. I still have been trying to manage how to operate a microwave and live in a world that believed I died ages ago. Perhaps, once I’ve settled at SHIELD, I can reach out to him. I’m not sure what I will say. After all, how does one explain that I am an old friend of yours and not quite as dead as people suspected?”

She sighed, regarding the silent, flat stone, so quiet compared to his large personality. “”I miss you already and it’s only been weeks. It’s rather good you aren’t here, I would hate to think you assumed I was getting sentimental on you, but there it is. I feel you’d manage this all far better than I would. But I had to come...I know it was madness, what Lang said, but if it is at all liked he suspects...well, you know me, sitting idly by and doing nothing when I could help was never quite my style.”

What had Howard thought, she wondered, staring at the gray granite at her feet. Fury said he had tried ways of finding her, and considering he had lived and died a normal life, he clearly never succeeded. Had she become another sad footnote, like Steve, an obsession he would trot out every so often and attempt to fix? What sort of man had he become in the end? Was he bitter over his losses? Had he perhaps gained perspective and grown from it? Clearly, he’d found a lasting marriage with Maria. Had he been a good husband and father? Her one, split moment decision now cost her the chance of ever knowing what became of him, of Edwin, of Ana, Angie, Daniel…

She hadn’t realized she was crying till she heard herself sobbing in the cold stillness, a gut wrenching sound. It hurt as it ripped out of her, and shocked her as she tried to stifle the sound against the scalding tears running down her cheeks. She’d made this decision herself, she knew the consequences, and yet, it was one thing to embrace it in the moment. It was another thing to live out the effects of it, to stare at the reality of everything that was lost in her impulsivity. Her family, her friends, the life she had known, she’d chosen to walk away from all of it out of the hope of finding Steve and somehow fixing the world. Perhaps they could fix things, perhaps they would fail, but already it came at a price, and while she accepted that cost, it didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. She stood over Howard’s grave, face in hand as she mourned everything she’d let go, oblivious to the scant few who wandered about this cemetery at this time of day. She heard nothing save for the sound of her own broken tears, missing the whisper of footsteps in the dry, brittle winter grass until there was a soft noise of a throat clearing at her shoulder.

“Hate to see anyone cry.” Fury stood beside her, holding out a tissue out for her. She blinked both at him and the tissue briefly before taking it gratefully, surprised at his appearance. In his other hand he held a bouquet that he bent to place in between Howard and Maria’s stones. He remained silent for several long, respectful moments as she put herself back together and he paid his respects. When she’d mopped up the worst of the make-up smears and straightened her shoulders once again, he turned his head to finally regard her with his good eye.

“Thank you,” she said simply, knowing she didn’t need to say much else.

“Of course.”

She felt foolish in the moment, blubbering over the consequences of her own decisions. “I had to come and see for myself, I suppose. It seems far too strange to me that he...that any of them are gone.”

“I don’t personally know, but I can well imagine. Sort of like those people who go into comas and wake up again to find decades have passed without their knowledge.”

“Except I wasn’t asleep, it literally happened in one night.” She knew it when she did it, but it didn’t make it easier to wrap her head around. “I will adjust, I suppose.”

“But the mourning is real, even if the choice was all yours.” He gave her an empathetic smile. “In this line of business, we all sacrifice something. We go into it wide-eyed, thinking we know the consequences, but it doesn’t hurt any less when they come to hit us in the face.”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t.” She sniffed softly, staring at Howard’s name in firm, block letters.

“We got lots of people for you to talk to, you know. I know therapists weren’t as approved in your time, but they do help, and you’ve seen more than most.”

She hadn’t even thought to consider it, but nodded without commitment, unable to process what that even would entail. “Do you regularly come out here to pay your respects to Howard?”

“Not in a while, no.” He knew she was looking for anything to change the subject. “Used to work with him a lot when I was in the LA field office. He was in and out on various things over the time I was there, but knew him mostly from his Project: Pegasus work.”

She had no idea what that even was and imagined it was some other mad invention Howard was involved in. “Did he have a good life?’

“Mostly, from what I could tell. We weren’t best friends, but he was the richest man in America with an entire company in his hands and helped to run one of the world’s largest espionage organizations. I think he did all right.”

Being in charge and being happy were two different ideas, but Peggy didn’t quibble as she wrapped her arms around her middle. “So, why did you have me followed, Director Fury?”

He didn’t bother looking repentant, only reached inside his long, sweeping coat to pull out a slim, plastic object with a metal end and a plastic tab inside that. “It’s called a USB drive. You use it on a computer. On there are files for the project I need you on.”

“My first assignment?” She couldn’t help but feel a thrill at that. It had been a long time- since taking the leadership of SHIELD at its founding - since she had an assignment. She rubbed a thumb over the stylized SHIELD logo on the top. “What do you have for me?”

“I began to do this myself, but I’m in a position where too many eyes are on me and it’s best to hand it off to someone who has all my status and skills and none of the political strings tying her down.”

“Ahh, so now you know how I felt. And how is it at the top?”

“About as boring as when you sat in this chair, but I have to deal with about five multi-billion dollar projects at the moment and have no time for this one.” He nodded at the device in her fingers. “That is all the files I have on the Avengers Initiative thus far.”

She stared up at him, then held the plastic device up. “In here?”

He smiled. “Technology, Carter, we’ll get you caught up.”

She would have been insulted if it weren’t so true. “So, what do you have for me?”

“The proposal, mostly, the nuts and bolts. The initial idea, the proposed budget numbers, the stuff you’ll be bored with. But I also have a database of potential perspectives for the initiative.”

“And have you vetted them?”

“Not yet. Haven’t really gotten too far off the ground with it. As you know, this is the sort of role where anything and everything else becomes a priority, and this got shoved to the back burner. But you’re here now, and you are tied to it, for better or for worse. You knew Captain America better than anyone and you know who he’s worked with. If there is anyone who can build a team around him, it’s you.”

That was a lofty assumption if she ever saw one. “I didn’t build the Howling Commandos, Steve did, mostly by walking into a pub and bribing them with an open tab.”

“They still worked, didn’t they?”

They had, despite what common sense and military expertise had told her. “They respected him as fellow soldiers. What you want is a team of these ‘superheroes’. My guess is that few of them have ever had to be on a team together.”

“And yet we need to somehow make them work. That’s where you come in, Carter.”

Well, if she had to earn her keep doing something. “Right, well I suppose then I’ll have to learn how to use this...USB drive.”

“Do you know how to use a modern phone?”

“Yes,” she snapped indignantly. “Mostly.”

Fury smirked but wisely decided not to prod her further on her sensitivity with technology. “In the meantime, I’ll get you clearance to do what you need. I’ll get Pierce on it, I think it will ease his mind knowing you are handling it.”

She took note of Pierce’s involvement as she pocketed the USB drive. “Well, then, I suppose I need to prepare for my assignment.”

“I suppose you do, though I feel I should at least buy a lady dinner for her work. What are your feelings on pastrami?”

“Is it Katz’s?”

“Where else?”

A small smile tugged upwards as she saw what the taciturn director was up to. “I’m glad some things in this mad world haven’t changed from my time.”

“Carter, you’d be stunned how few things have changed from your time to this one, good and bad.” He held out an arm for her to wrap a hand around. “Least I can still be a gentleman.”

“Your mother taught you well.”

“She was a southern lady, if I did anything different she’d smack me into next week, God rest her soul.” He glanced back at the graves at their feet. “Besides, I think I owe it to Howard to make sure I keep my good eye on you.”

“Will I ever learn how you lost the bad one?” She tapped her left eye pointedly.

“Classified, Carter. When you get the clearance, you can find out.”

“Now you are begging me to look into it.”

He only chuckled as he walked with her across the brown grass, through the gravestones that marked the memories of other lifetimes and other people now gone long ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I put a different Cassie in this story...yes, yes I have. Her name is actually the mushing of two dear friends of mine, one with the first name and one with the last name, and she wanted to be called Cassie. As a Jennifer myself, I'm rather used to many iterations of mine name, so I am rolling with it because it feels more natural to me to have people with the same name than people who have different names (and hey, we have a Steven and a Stephen in the MCU as well as two Peters, so you know, we roll).


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy gets another assignment.

Peggy arrived as requested on the Farm, a SHIELD training ground, a boot camp for operatives on all levels, from the lowliest analyst to the most highly trained combatant. Housed on a literal farm, a sprawling facility in the foothills of Appalachia an hour outside of the nation’s capital, everyone went for some length of time, sometimes a week or two, sometimes months, but the level of the training was intense even by Peggy’s own SOE war standards. She quickly discovered that whatever fighting style she had learned from the SOE and US Arm was crude and rough compared to what she was put through. Her first day there had left her exhausted, battered and bruised in ways she hadn’t thought possible, and she had been unsure if she would ever catch up. She hadn’t believed hand-to-hand combat would have changed so much in 60 years, but it had gotten faster, more refined, and brutal, influenced by Asian forms of martial arts that she had only vaguely heard about. Clearly, her time training would be insufficient to improve greatly, but it at least taught her what she didn’t know and what she’d have to learn.

When she wasn’t being used as a punching bag by trainers who could throw her around a mat, she had protocols thrown at her. That at least felt familiar. While the equipment of spycraft and espionage had changed, as had the players, the fundamentals of it hadn’t. Here she felt a bit more like an old dog who knew all the tricks, and while she had a lot to learn on the geo-political situations in the modern world, there was some relief in knowing that despite sophisticated technologies and these things called satellites that could orbit the earth and do spying for you, the game itself hadn’t changed all that much. It still required a keen, detective mind and the ability to have your wits about you, something Peggy hadn’t lost in her bit of time jumping. She may still be slightly afraid of anything using microwaves to heat up food, but her perception and insight was still just as keen as ever.

In between all these pieces, she perused the documents Fury had given her. She sat up nearly every night in the quarters assigned to her reviewing the work of a decade on Fury’s part. Much of it didn’t make total sense, but she pieced together that Howard had at some point in his expeditions to the Arctic found the Tesseract, that his experiments with it had lead to the development of what he called “Arc Reactor Technology”, a power source she little understood, as well as to a program called Project: Pegasus, the aforementioned program Fury had met Howard on. It was out of that this ‘Avengers Initiative’ was born, out of some incident with the Tesseract that was still a mystery. That Fury was still hiding the reason was amusing. It seemed that despite the respect he held her in, he certainly didn’t trust her yet.

She had expected another few weeks in the cold of West Virginia before being released back to the fabulous apartment in New York, but it was to her surprise that she was summarily summoned to Washington DC, the new heart and soul of SHIELD operations in the United States. She swallowed her pride as she braved being behind the wheel of a 21st century vehicle for the first time and the madness of modern traffic. She had been to Washington DC only a handful of times in the 1940’s, mostly in her role as director, and the city she found there now was vastly different, sprawling across the Potomac, having boomed in the military build up of the Cold War. The Triskelion was one of the results of that, a massive complex on Theodore Roosevelt Island, towers all linked together, bridged to the mainland by a gated thoroughfare to a shining column of glass and concrete that still dazzled Peggy’s very old fashioned eyes.

Maria Hill was there to meet her when she arrived, all military strictness even in her civilian suit. “You survived getting here on your own.”

Peggy didn’t want to admit that she had white-knuckled it most of the way through the modern freeway. “You know the fact that in this day and age you’ve invented a device to tell you directions should be given far more credit than it is.”

“Wait till it’s 3 am in the middle of Nowhere, New Mexico and it tells you to turn right into a road that doesn’t exist, then you’ll rethink that.” Speaking with the voice of long suffering experience, she passed Peggy a plastic card on a lanyard. “Your badge to move about the building, though, I should warn you, you likely won’t need it. Most people have already heard the gossip that the great Peggy Carter has come back from the dead.”

Peggy could only snort mildly as she slipped it over her head and under the heavy wool coat. “I would think they wouldn’t notice me in an agency of thousands.”

Hill cut her eyes at her as they walked with an expression that mocked her naivete. “You do realize your picture hangs in the front lobby, right?”

“A photo of me from 1948.”

“The suit may be new, but you are still painfully Peggy Carter.”

That much was true, she supposed, glancing at her reflection in the glass of the door as it slid open. The clothes were the ones she had purchased with Sharon, and even her hair was now relaxed into something more modern in tone than the painstaking pincurls of her youth. The makeup, however, remained unchanged. She would be damned if she gave up her beloved lipstick. She had kitted herself out in what Sharon said was a “professional badass power suit”, which had looked like a nicer, sleeker version of the one her niece owned. At the time she purchased it, it had struck the note of a powerful woman, something she hadn’t felt in her first weeks in this world. As she wandered behind Hill to the bank of elevators, it occurred to her that in this world she was indeed one of those powerful women, a legend in this building and to this organization. The realization left her feeling slightly heady as the doors opened and Hill led the way inside.

“Sub-basement 3, please.” Hill glanced at a screen on the inside of the doors as a disembodied voice floated from up above the clear glass walls.

“Of course, Deputy Director, Director Emerita.” The elevator moved smoothly as Peggy frowned up towards the lit ceiling.

“Director Emerita?”

The corner of Hill’s mouth quirked at Peggy’s obvious confusion. “I knew you’d hate the title. That was Secretary Pierce’s call. He was very adamant that if the secret was out, we might as well acknowledge who you are and your rank within SHIELD.”

“How very political of him,” Peggy observed, dryly.

“Alexander Pierce is nothing if not a political creature,” Hill replied enigmatically as the elevator doors opened again and she stepped out of them with a pointed smile. Peggy followed the other woman into the lobby of the sub-basement they alighted on, through the heavy metal door that led into a massive gym facility. The floor was covered in all manner of weight equipment, very modern compared to what she had seen in the 1940s, though the punching bags being thoroughly pummelled in one of the adjoining rooms were familiar enough to her. In fact, the area had several adjoining rooms branching off, one with what looked like stationary bikes, filled with women furiously spinning like a beehive locked in there, another with several pairs working on hand-to-hand maneuvers, viciously throwing each other around so fast Peggy could almost blink and miss it.

“It never stops boggling my mind how fast and deadly martial arts have become,” she murmured as they wandered past a woman of only 5 feet taking down a 6’2 man as easily as if he had been a child.

“We’ve come a long way since the days of kicking them in the balls and punching them in the face, though, in fairness, that still works too.” Hill led her past the bank of rooms, down a short hallway where the scuff and screech of shoes on varnished wood and the slap of a ball as it was bounced down the floor. The basketball court was busy as they wandered past, a full on game apparently commencing as a mixed group of men and women called lazily back and forth to each other, a sort of good-natured jeering in their competitiveness. Hill ignored them, however, as she moved towards a room further down the walkway, as large as the court, if not larger, sunk down to the level below and walled off by a glass bank of windows. A man stood there, observing whatever was inside quietly.

“I’ve brought her to you, Coulson, please don’t embarrass yourself.” Only the hint of a smirk on Hill’s otherwise stoic face gave away her teasing humor. The other man turned, visibly straightening himself up as he regarded Peggy with a perfectly blank expression, though something glittered in his eyes as he took her outstretched hand.

“Director Carter, it’s such a pleasure to meet you! It’s an honor to be working with you.”

Peggy wasn’t sure what to make of the admiration from him. “Thank you, I’ve been told you are Director Fury’s left hand to Hill’s right?”

“He does the hard work so I can stay here and herd cats.” Hill patted Coulson’s shoulder as she wandered past to the overlooking the large room Coulson had been watching. “How is she doing?”

“Like she never missed a step.” A broad smile cracked the straight facade as he glanced over to Peggy. “We had one of our top agents go down last year. She’s been rehabing the last few months.”

Peggy guessed “rehab” must tie to her recovery from whatever injury she suffered. That one of their top agents was a woman and that Coulson didn’t think twice about saying that still somewhat surprised her.

Hill watched, clearly impressed as she let off a low whistle. “Honestly, I wish I could move half as well as that.”

Coulson only laughed. “If you had her training, you could.”

Peggy wandered to the viewing area, looking down into a large space, filled with fake walls, hazards, and other items that created a cluttered obstacle course of sorts, the kind you’d use to train in close quarter, guerilla style tactics. The mat covered floor was spackled in bright, brilliant colors, as was the wall and most all of the obstacles. Behind one of the larger, uneven walls crouched a red-haired woman, dressed in the black athletic clothing everyone seemed to favor now, close fitting and breathable. She was hunched behind the smallest of walls, crouched so low she was nearly laying on the floor. In her hand she held a wand or stick, and she cautiously raised it as far away from her as possible, up to the top of the low wall, allowing the tip to peek over it. Almost immediately, from seemingly out of nowhere, there was a whistle and a streak of color that took out the stick in her hand. She dropped it as it fell, and behind it on the mat a blob of bright pink oozed with a feathered shaft sticking drunkenly in it, standing upright before falling, inelegantly, to the mat.

“Is that an arrow?” Peggy was baffled by whatever it was she saw.

“A paint arrow, yes.” Coulson only chuckled and shook his head. “Specially formatted for some gnarly games of paint gun.”

“Don’t think those things don’t hurt when they hit you, because they do.” Hill groused as she rubbed a shoulder, seemingly in memory of being hit with one.

Before Peggy could ask why a bow and arrow, the woman sprang up from her crouched position. In a fluid movement she gracefully leapt up, threw herself over the wall, tucking and rolling on the other side, before bounding up again, using her momentum to allow her to throw herself halfway up one wall, only to bounce, like a dancer off the other wall, scaling what had to be twenty feet of obstacle in seconds as she tossed what looked to be a bright purple grenade high up into the air at a target somewhere in the rafters, all the while dodging arrows of sticky, brightly colored paint that bounced off the mat and walls around her without touching her. When she finally came to the top of the barricade, she smoothly removed what looked to be a child’s toy weapon from a holster on one thigh, aiming in the same general direction, tracking some target, before firing four rounds and finally leaping to the other side and out of their general view. Somewhere up above them Peggy could hear the sound of a man cursing, loudly.

“Sounds like she got him.” Hill sounded too pleased by this.

“He had it coming, he’s been taunting her.” Coulson watched as the figure crept along a far wall. “I’ve got $100 bucks on her kicking his ass in under five.”

“That’s a sucker bet,” Hill snorted.

Peggy watched the woman and the ways she moved, the lethal grace and deadly focus, combined with an unearthly calm in the face of attack as she stalked across one of the battlements, eyes trained on the shadows across from her. It brought Dottie Underwood to mind, the same mixture of beauty and danger that she embodied, though in fairness this woman outstripped even the formidable Dottie from what little Peggy had seen. The idea of the sort of training and abuse the assassin had been put through had disgusted her and as she watched the woman dance between pillars, avoiding sticky arrows, she couldn’t help but wonder where she had learned hers.

In a feat of breathtaking acrobatics, the woman threw herself over the railing along the battlements, up to the rafters, grabbing on to the edge and flipped herself up into the shadows, outside of the sight of any of the three of them sitting there. Less than a minute later there were mutual shouts and an outbreak of laughter, followed by feminine squeals and a man shouting “serves you right!” At that, Hill and Coulson laughed outright.

“Sounds like we have a winner.” Hill wandered to a door to the side. It led into the room, to a catwalk into the rafter area. Peggy followed the other two as they came upon the woman with a man, both engaged in flinging gobs of gooey paint at one another. Bright purple streaked down the man’s face and had managed to get into the woman’s coppery hair as she smashed green upside his left ear, making him cringe away as she laughed brightly.

“Good to see you back in fighting form.” Coulson drly regarded the pair of them, who hardly looked repentant for their antics. “I warned you not to taunt the beast, Barton.”

The man only smirked, just in time for the woman to flick more paint in his face. “That you did, sir.” He glared at the woman, who grinned but said nothing. Coulson, for his part, seemed to be patient with the pair of them as he looked back at Peggy, standing carefully just outside of the paint kill zone.

“I’d like you both to meet Director Peggy Carter.” He waved a hand towards her and she responded by smiling at them both. “Director, these are Agents Barton and Romanoff.”

They both nodded, respectful if not more than a bit curious. Romanoff in particular eyed her with a certain wariness, while Barton immediately brought up the question she was sure that everyone would ask.

“Director? What, just taking over Fury’s job?”

“Not exactly,” she replied, meeting the pair of them head on. “It’s honorary more than anything, I’m not interested in Director Fury’s job. I’ll be working primarily with Deputy Director Hill and Agent Coulson.”

This seemed to relieve them both.

“So, I guess you aren’t as dead as we thought you were.” Barton seemed to have a certain lazy frankness about him that Peggy could respect. 

She grinned, shrugging. “Time travel tends to work that way.”

“I’ve heard of crazier things.” Barton seemed rather nonplussed with it all. Romanoff was curiously silent. Peggy couldn’t shake the idea the woman’s trust and good humor had to be earned. 

“Director Carter will be working with us on our next mission.” Coulson glanced at Hill, who nodded. “Clean up, meet me upstairs. We got something hot for you both.”

“My guess is that this doesn’t involve a beach and a paid vacation anywhere.”

“You manage this and I’ll pay for you to go wherever you want, Barton.” Coulson glanced between the pair. “I’ll see you in twenty.”

They nodded, with Romanoff silently wiping sticky hands down the front of Barton’s shirt, much to her partner’s chagrin. She didn’t even look sorry as he groaned in mild distress. Coulson only managed to shake his head, leading the way out as behind them Peggy could hear Barton loudly complaining about her ruining his favorite shirt.

“I do admit, it’s amusing to watch Romanoff own Barton.” Hill wandered with them as they went back to the elevators where she and Peggy had come down. “And it’s good to see her back to form.”

“Which is why I’m using them now.” Coulson called down the elevator, which opened almost as soon as he pressed the button.

“I heard what you got. Not going to be easy.” Hill shook her dark head, entering inside. “Administrative Floor.”

“Level 45, please.” Coulson glanced at Peggy. “You’ll be with me on this one, Director.”

“Carter is just fine.” Director Emerita was such a silly title, and Director wasn’t even really what she did anymore, anyway. Fury had the title and she was happy to let him have it.

Coulson looked vaguely scandalized by the idea. “Are you sure?”

“Frankly, I was barely used to the idea of being called director.” The elevator rose up out of the basement and through the lobby to come up outside of the building itself. The view of the cold, clear Washington DC skyline was breathtaking as they rose above the scraggly treeline of the Potomac River. As far as the eye could see the city spread. In the near distance, she could see the monuments of the United States capital huddled near the browning expanse of the National Mall. Across the river, northern Virginia loomed, far more built up than it had ever been in her original day.

“It’s all changed so much,” she murmured, mostly to herself.

The other two were polite enough not to comment.

The elevator finally stopped after a moment on the floor Coulson desired. Hill wished them luck as they stepped off onto an open floor of desks and dividers, men and women on computers. Coulson led her to a glass walled office, a corner overlooking another side of the sprawling landscape beyond.

“Please, have a seat.” Coulson waved towards the leather chairs by his desk. Peggy took one of the further ones, leaving room for Barton and Romanoff when they made their appearance.

“You have a situation you want me involved in, then?” She cut right to the chase, setting down the briefcase with the tried-and-true pen and paper inside. She reached for both as Coulson settled himself.

“One I think you’d be suited to help with, yes.” He remained vague, perhaps waiting on the other two to arrive.

“You do know what Director Fury has me on right now, correct?” She thought she might test the waters to see how far Fury trusted his left hand.

Coulson, to his credit, saw right through her admittedly obvious ploy. “I think that this case might tie into your work on the initiative Director Fury has you working on, yes.”

She smiled, considering. “So, the pair you introduced me to?”

“My top team.” Coulson seemed happy to discuss that. “STRIKE teams run particular types of military and covert ops in the field. Barton and Romanoff run STRIKE Team Delta and are used for high level espionage and sensitive targets.”

“So they are spies and assassins?” Sixty years had changed the terminology, as Peggy was unfortunately learning.

“Yes.” Coulson didn’t even flinch at the suggestion of what they got up to.

“Interesting.” Peggy leaned back and considered the pair. Barton was as ordinary as you could get as a spy, outside of the sharp blue eyes that could see through you. The fact he used a bow and arrow was different, curious as a matter of fact, especially in an age when everyone preferred rifles. She thought of Barnes with a passing pang as she moved on to consider the woman instead, with the dangerous skills that had been both mesmerizing and terrifying. “The woman, Romanoff, I’ve seen what she could do before.”

Coulson nodded grimly as he reached across his desk to a keyboard embedded in it. It was made of glass, like the phones, and he pressed a few letters. To the side of the room a light was projected onto the wall and a dossier on Romanoff appeared, complete with several film clips of an impossibly young and deadly woman. Peggy ignored being awed by the technology in favor of scanning the information Coulson presented.

“Her name is Natalia Alianovna Romanova, but for our files she prefers Natasha Romanoff. And yes, you have seen the likes of her before. Let’s just say she’s the spiritual daughter of Dottie Underwood, who I think you knew rather well.”

That didn’t sit well with Peggy as she watched a 20 second snippet in which the petite redhead managed to take down a room of 10 armed men without so much as breaking a sweat. “She’s far more dangerous than Dottie ever was.”

“That much is true.” Coulson glanced at the video with a sad sigh. “But her story is fairly similar. She was sent to the Red Room, a KGB training school for girls like Natasha. Our guess is that it was the evolution of the same program you and the Howling Commandos found over there when you were searching for Leviathan.”

She recalled the red mark around Dottie’s wrist. “They turned little girls into killers.”

“Yes, they did. Natasha was no different.”

Peggy considered the woman on the screen. She’d been wary in their introduction, unlike nearly everyone else she’d run into thus far who’d been in various stages of awe. This Romanoff was much more cautious, unsure of what to make of her or what threat she possibly could be. Peggy would lay odds her childhood had been one unpredictable threat after another.

“Romanova? Is she any relation to…”

“No, we think it was assigned to her, sort of like ‘Smith’ or ‘Jones’.” Coulson clearly had anticipated that, and Peggy could only smile slightly sheepishly. “What little she or anyone else knows is that she was placed in the program at a very young age. She thinks she had parents, but we’ve yet to find them.”

“Did they take her for any particular reason?”

Coulson shrugged. “They took all types, mostly orphans, kids whose families couldn't keep them, children in abusive situations, ones that no one would notice were missing. Natasha, however, was perhaps one of the best they ever produced. By the time she was 16 she was already being sent out on missions. At 18 she had a kill list that would rival even the most well known assassins. She was particularly deadly because of her age and appearance. Who would believe a girl with the looks of an innocent would be able to snap you in two with a flick of a wrist?”

Something about all that sounded horribly sad to Peggy. She considered Dottie again, of the twisted woman and the upbringing that had turned her into that. “How did she end up out of the KGB and with SHIELD?”

Coulson flicked his fingers across the keyboard again and a news article flickered up on the wall, complete with pictures of a burned out building. “Romanoff was sent in on a hit that went bad, more than one of those actually. By this time the Cold War was over and the KGB was in disarray. The Red Room was really serving the highest bidder in Russia, KGB or not. The incident in Brazil was a hit, nothing more or less, from one drug lord to another, all wrapped in the rhetoric of national security. It went badly - very badly. Romanoff took it hard. When it was done - well, she found the Russian drug lord responsible for the hit, made sure he was killed in the most compromising way possible, then called the police. Then she left and went on her own. She was just shy of 20.”

Peggy studied the cold expression on the lovely woman’s face. “That wasn’t that long ago.”

“No, it wasn’t. She spent the next year on her own, mostly trying to make a go of it solo. She was deadly, there was no denying it, and she was trouble. There was a price on her head, and frankly, she was a pain in our ass. Barton was sent by Fury to deal with her.”

“Clearly, he didn’t.”

“No, he didn’t. He made a different call.” Coulson studied the still image of Romanoff for long moments. “You ever see a feral cat?”

Peggy only nodded as he waved towards Romanoff’s image. “That’s how I’d have described her that day Barton brought her in. She was half-starved, scared of her own shadow, sure as hell didn’t trust any of us. She’d been used as a murderous sex object for years and I think she assumed that’s what we’d want her for. She didn’t trust anyone here, except maybe Barton. It took a long time for her to warm up to any of us. But Fury saw in her someone who deserved a chance. He said he once met someone not so different from Romanoff and that he was willing to give her a chance to make it right, to believe in her. She signed on the SHIELD dotted line. She’s been here ever since.”

“And you believe she’s loyal?” Peggy had to ask the question. She remembered Dottie too well to not worry.

Coulson contemplated that before answering her honestly. “I believe that she’s loyal to Barton and to Fury, and perhaps possibly to me. I think that’s enough. Outside of that, she’s seen what organizations can do. She’s loyal to people. You earn her trust and she’s with you completely. She’s got a big heart, Natasha, even if she likes to pretend it’s as cold and arid as Siberia in the winter.”

Peggy filed all this information for later as her attention turned to the man who had saved Romanoff. “So, Barton? He has a thing for broken little girls and arrows?”

“He’s a bit more straightforward.” Coulson pulled up his file as it swiped onto the projection, displacing Romanoff. “His father used to be a trick shot artist, did the circus and rodeo circuits in the 60s and 70s before an accident forced him to settle down back home in Iowa. He was a dead shot, but a mean drunk, especially after his wife died of cancer in the mid-80s leaving him with two boys to fend for. Clint is the older, tended to take care of his kid brother and drunk father as best he could.”

“Which would explain why he had a soft spot for an abused Russian assassin.” The pieces started fitting together more for Peggy.

“You would be right. In any case, Clint developed his father’s eye and skill with a bow, not unusual around there where bowhunting is a popular sport. Rather than use it for entertainment, though, he signed up for the Army straight out of high school, as much to get away from his abusive, alcoholic father as to serve his country. He’s just as deadly with a rifle and a pistol as he is with a bow and arrow and he served in special forces till his sign up was done. Then he went mercenary for a while, working for licensed security forces contracted for the Department of Defense, mostly in the Middle East, until he decided he’d had enough of the ‘man-for-hire’ life. That’s when Fury offered him a place in SHIELD. He’s been here ever since, but he's always worked most closely with Fury. If there is a story there, and there probably is, I don’t know it and I don’t ask.”

“Very respectful of their privacy.”

“If you get to this level in SHIELD everyone has a secret and reason for being here. 

It was perhaps a un-romantic perspective but one Peggy respected, certainly. “What’s your reason for being here, Agent Coulson?”

“My parents are dead and I have a history degree and idolized you and Steve Rogers. I figured I had to do some good in the world, just like the two of you did.”

Perhaps he wasn’t un-romantic after all. “That is rather sweet.”

“I have my moments.” He glanced up as the door to his office opened and the pair of Romanoff and Barton entered, showered and in street clothes. Barton looked like every other man she’d seen in New York, dark denim, a dark t-shirt, and a leather jacket, casual and yet serious. Romanoff had gone for her own version, exchanging the dark leather for warmer brown suede. Of the pair, Barton was the only one to give her a friendly smile. Romanoff barely acknowledged her.

“That took less time than expected.”

“I made this batch of paint more water soluble. Nothing says ‘death wish’ quite like dyeing your assassin partner’s hair blue by mistake.”

“I’d have preferred pink,” she murmured, taking one of the seats, the one furthest from Peggy. Barton settled between them. Peggy noted it and pretended to be very busy with her empty notebook. She could feel the curiosity of both of them, though Barton was far more apparent with his.

“So, you said you have an assignment.” Romanoff jumped in eagerly. She had been off field work for a while rehabilitating an injury, so it made sense she was itching for something. Peggy remembered that feeling well.

“Better be more entertaining than baby-sitting North Korean diplomats with a taste for McDonald's,” Barton muttered.

“It’s bigger at least.” Coulson flashed up a picture and a bit of film onto his projection. The minute she saw who it was Peggy knew why it was that Coulson wanted her in this detail and that Coulson was absolutely aware of Fury’s side Avengers project. She blinked up at Tony Stark’s smirking face before shooting Coulson a pointed look. He only shrugged.

“What in the hell has Stark done now?” Barton lazily slid into his seat, rolling his eyes as if Tony was a recalcitrant teenager. Clearly, Howard’s son also had Howard’s reputation.

“Gotten himself kidnapped for starters.” Coulson flipped up another clip, this one of a pile of twisted metal, burning and smoking, in a desert somewhere surrounded by the bodies of what looked like soldiers. “Four weeks ago Stark was in Afghanistan showing off a weapons system to some Army top brass.”

Something tugged at Peggy’s memory, from her brief interaction from Lang, something about things Stark had gone through. Lang had hinted at trauma, an event or several that had been “hard”. It clicked with her then what that had been about as she studied the video and the attendant information on the screen, the destruction and the missing Stark. This must have been at least one of the things Lang referenced. Had SHIELD rescued him then? He hadn’t said and she didn’t know.

Barton whistled low as he viewed the burned out husk of what had to be a jeep or similar type of vehicle. “Stark’s neither military nor a diplomat. Why do they keep insisting on flying civilians like him into dangerous areas?”

“It’s the US Army, why do they ever do what they do?” Coulson's sentiment was not dissimilar to Peggy’s own in the 1940’s, and she could see that indeed some things clearly didn’t change. “Stark made a demonstration of a weapons system, nicknamed ‘Jericho’, which he showed off with all the bells and whistles.”

“Because the walls came a tumblin’ down?” Romanoff arched a perfect eyebrow, a hint of a smirk lurking as Coulson snorted outright. Peggy noted that for a woman who was a Russian national, her American English was impeccable. Like Dottie, she’d been trained to sound as if she fit in.

“Pretty much. Stark has been perfecting SI’s repulsor technology and employed it on this new system. Each of the individual missiles now frees itself and flies, unerringly, straight to the heart of any target you want.”

Peggy knew she was behind on technology, particularly anything Howard or his son had concocted in the time she had lost, but she felt hopelessly confused as the other two nodded. “I’m sorry, repulsor technology?”

“It’s a propulsion system that doesn’t use any fuel.” Surprisingly, Barton was the one to answer. “Stark Industries has been one of the few companies pushing for ‘clean’ energy, a bit of a shock considering they are weapons dealers. Howard Stark created the Arc Reactor in the 70s as a reaction to the oil crises and growing demand on nuclear energy. He only ever managed the one factory that I know of, but it was always a pet project. Tony was the one who created repulsors, mostly as a gimmick and toy last I saw.”

Coulson’s expression was grim as he cued up film footage of Tony Stark in a beautiful and likely expensive suit, standing in front of a ridge of lightly dusted, snow-capped mountains overlooking a desert valley. “Well, he figured out how to weaponize the toy and that’s what he was showing off in Afghanistan.”

Tony raised his arms, as over his shoulders a missle fragmented, scattered, and flew with pinpoint accuracy into the mountain range, a dust cloud flying across the valley and enveloping the scene, the camera crew included. Peggy could only blink in mute horror as Barton whistled and Romanoff nodded her head, clearly impressed.

“So, somebody saw his demonstration and wanted to kidnap him for a free version?” The red haired woman glanced sideways at Coulson.

“Considering the length of time between when the demonstration occurred and when he was taken, unlikely. They knew where Stark was, they knew his route, his itinerary, and had it meticulously planned ahead of time. They wanted him before Joshua blew his horn.”

Peggy finally spoke up into the proceedings. “Could it have been someone who knew of what he was making and had a tip on him going there to demonstrate it. Perhaps, someone from the inside of Stark Industries who passed off information, wittingly or unwittingly.”

All three sets of eyes turned on her. Coulson only just containing his delight at her suggestion. “It’s a possibility, certainly, though Stark is notoriously guarded about who he lets into his inner circle. He has a personal bodyguard and a personal assistant and that’s it outside of Obadiah Stane, who is his second-in-command at Stark Industries, and Colonel James Rhodes, who is the military liaison who works with Stark. Everyone else is an acquaintance at best, mostly employees, social connections, and a string of women he’s slept with, but none of them personal relationships.”

That sounded painfully familiar. “You said Stark was kidnapped a month ago? Why are we just finding out about it now, considering what his father was to SHIELD?”

That brought some uncomfortable shuffling from the other two who glanced pointedly at Coulson as if they were passing on a hot potato no one wanted to touch. Coulson clearly was used to getting his fingers burned on behalf of others, as he didn’t think twice about answering. “Howard purposely kept Tony out of SHIELD.”

That surprised her. “Whatever for?”

She didn’t miss the private look between Barton and Romanoff as Coulson searched for words. “Things changed a lot for Howard after you disappeared. He became more guarded about the work of SHIELD, more careful about what we let others know about. SHIELD was doing both international espionage and high level scientific research, all of which could have been dangerous if taken by one particular nation.”

That made a great deal of sense. Howard had been personally affected by the machinations of Leviathan and Dottie Underwood, not to mention Whitney Frost. Peggy’s disappearance must have been the last straw for his willingness to share and any open door policy. Closing such information from any one government, that made sense to her. Shutting out your own son did not.

“So how did Howard explain his double life to his family?” That made her curious as she studied the man on the projection.

“I don’t know that he did,” Coulson admitted frankly. “Maria Stark may or may not have known, I can’t be certain. Tony never did. He was fairly young when his father died, just barely old enough to even have legal right to run the company, and I don’t think Howard ever revealed to him the truth.”

That certainly made things difficult. “So, Howard never shared the secret of SHIELD to his son, but that certainly doesn’t explain how SHIELD never took more precautions with him. He’s a high profile person with ties to this organization, whether he’s aware of it or not, and no one bothered to put a detail on him?”

Romanoff chose to speak up then. “Fury has had an eye on him for years, it’s not as if people weren’t paying attention.”

“So, they were out to tea when Tony Stark went to Afghanistan and suddenly disappeared?” Peggy met her cool gaze with one of her own. “How did it take four weeks for you to find out?”

Exasperation flickered in Coulson’s equanimity. “The US Military isn’t in the habit of discussing their high level operations with SHIELD, as if we didn’t already know about them. That said, they kept the Stark thing under wraps, mostly from the sheer embarrassment of losing a high profile celebrity and their main weapons dealer on a routine demonstration as he was being shuttled back to the US military base. It shows their own laxity in dealing with details.”

“How did we end up finding out about it,” Barton asked.

“Rhodes reached out when the US Military dragged its feet on the matter. He’s Stark’s best friend and consequently he got shut out of the investigation because he was ‘too close to it.’

“So the US military can save face and not let on they are incompetent, and if they never find him alive again they can brush it off as Muslim fundamentalists.” Romanoff rolled her eyes heavenward in a gesture Peggy herself wanted to emulate. This entire situation sounded more like a farce and less like a military action.

“I’m afraid we don’t get that luxury,” Coulson tapped on his glass and light keyboard, several screens of information popping up. “Needless to say, Tony Stark being missing is a huge risk to international security. His company alone holds 90% of the contracts on the weapons systems for the globe and he was involved in the design of most if not all of those. The man has more secrets on our defenses than NATO does and if they break him it could endanger all of us. Worse, we are out one genius who has kept us safe for the last twenty years, and SHIELD will have let the son of one of our founders get killed under our watch. Our assignment is to find what information we can and triangulate where he is with the hope of feeding it to Rhodes to man a rescue. Unfortunately, we don’t have much to go on. Afghanistan is pockmarked with insurgents and not all of them belong to the same groups and causes.”

Peggy took careful note in her private shorthand, considering the many lectures and file briefs she had read of late on the current situation in Central Asia. Despite the many back channel conversations she knew both sides of the Cold War had been having at one another, she hadn’t been surprised by the intricate chess game of state building that the two engaged in over the next fifty years. She had seen it in her time as the Soviets gobbled up the territories they controlled in Eastern Europe while the United States had thrown money at propping up Western European democracies. It had all blown up in their face, of course, as things tend to, and now they were reaping the rewards of that. The escalation of violent terrorism had horrified her, and she considered that as she pondered why it was Tony Stark had been taken and what they wanted out of him.

Coulson continued, oblivious to Peggy’s musings. “Rhodes stated that the attack occurred in the Kunar province, along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, though he’s not sure they stayed there.”

“Frankly, they could have moved him anywhere at this point, even into Iran or Pakistan. They have no way of knowing.” Barton glared at the map on the screen. “Any other intel?”

“No one is talking to the US Army about it. Why would they?” Coulson’s equanimity was underlined by a hint of disgust. “This entire situation has been a shit show from the beginning and I for one have no problem in letting the US public know that should Stark not make it out of this in one piece.”

“So, I’m guessing you want us to be the eyes and ears the US military can’t seem to find?” Romanoff cooly leaned back in her seat, her face impassive, but eyes calculating as Peggy watched her make mental note of locations and information on the screen.

“You two are the best I got and you have the skills we need to hopefully figure out if Stark’s alive and if we can get to him.”

Barton clearly perked up at this. “Been a while since we’ve had real field work, sir. Do I get to pull out the old cover for this?”

Coulson cracked his half smile as he nodded. “Your arms dealer will be able to get in and ask questions on Stark and no one will think twice on that. I have a transport for you to Kabul and after that you are on your own.”

This pleased Barton but didn’t seem to make Romanoff happy. “You’re sending him in there alone?”

“For now. The Taliban might not be in control, but remember, this is still a patriarchal society who would frown on a shady black market dealer running with an attractive woman no matter how foreign they both were. No, I need you to go back home for a bit, probing some old connections, preferably those who served in the Afghan War. I’m guessing ex-Soviets who fought there in the 80s know where some of the lesser known hidey holes are.”

Something tense flickered for a moment in her expression, but she nodded firmly, squaring her shoulders. “I’ve been craving _pirozhki_ of late.”

Peggy noted her all-too-brief flicker of emotion that upset the other woman’s neutral calm. Was it her past or something else that bothered her about returning to her homeland? Curiosity mingled with Peggy’s memories of Dottie and the threat she posed. Obviously, Romanoff distrusted Peggy. What was her reason for it? Moreso, what was it about Peggy that set the Russian assassin on edge?

“Director Carter?” Coulson’s invocation caught her attention and she found herself frowning at the title.

“As I said earlier, we could just stick to Carter, just to keep it simple.”

Both Barton and Romanoff clearly approved of this, though Coulson blinked as if she had suggested he call her “sweetheart”.

“If you would like,” he hedged, clearly uncomfortable with the idea. “I’m reaching out to you because I know the work Fury has asked you to do, but I am hoping to use your expertise as well. I figure you and I could work together on this.”

Well, that confirmed it. She smiled, unsure of how much the other two were aware. “I’m afraid I’m not yet completely up-to-date on the global threat assessment and the geopolitical situation. I don’t know how much use I will be to you.”

“I think the skill set you have will be perfectly fine. I need your detective’s mind and computational brain more than anything. As I said, we suspect someone on the inside helped to coordinate the kidnapping of Stark. The question is who and how did they get that level of access and who are they working with. Few agents are as good as you were figuring out those random connections and sussing out the right threads to follow.”

It sounded so flattering to hear him say that, though Peggy highly doubted in an agency full of thousands that she was unique. “It’s just standard detective work, Agent Coulson, I’m hardly alone in that skill set.”

“But no one else knew Howard Stark. You did.” Romanoff turned in her chair, ever so slightly, hard words spoken in a tone as light as the wind, even if the eyes behind it were not.

She had. It ached to think of him in the past, to know for her it had only been weeks ago and that he had in reality been dead for decades now. “I’m not sure what my knowledge of Howard has anything to do with this?”

“Still, it’s more than any of us know on the Starks.” Romanoff shrugged, a graceful, lazy gesture.

“She’s right,” Coulson affirmed firmly. “Tony Stark, for all his showboating, keeps his privacy and few know his habits. While Tony isn’t his father, if the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, we may be able to piece together who he trusted, who knew what, and if he’s at all alive somewhere in the Afghan mountains.”

It was a stretch, frankly, but Peggy supposed desperate times called for desperate measures. “Is his friend, Colonel Rhodes, available to talk? Perhaps his secretary, other members of Stark Industries?”

“I’ll see what I can do. I can get you what I can on Stark Industries and Howard’s private files. I can’t be terribly certain whatever it is doesn’t connect back to him somehow. Howard kept his business and SHIELD worlds separate and it’s hard telling who Stark Industries has dealt with over the years. This could be payback or retaliation for any number of things.”

Knowing Howard, Peggy wouldn’t be surprised. “As I’m still not completely up to speed on modern technologies, could I request assistance?”

Coulson arched an eyebrow. “Depends on who you bring on board.”

“My niece, Sharon Carter.”

“She doesn’t have that high of a security clearance,” Romanoff shot off immediately, earning side-eye from Barton sitting between them.

“No, but she is an agents of SHIELD, correct? And she is far more capable with the means of modern research than I am.”

“She is a lower ranked agent and answer to other divisions.”

“And I’m sure that a special request on my part for their assistance would perhaps push the matter along, am I right, Agent Coulson?”

Coulson was looking frankly baffled by Romanoff’s objections. “It shouldn’t be a problem. Sharon’s a good agent, a damn fine one, and we could use her. Fury wants this done quickly and quietly and I’m all for any tool I can get.”

His last comment effectively quieted Romanoff, who didn’t look pleased, but at least nodded in acquiescence. “Sharon is good, I won’t deny that. She’s got a level head and is discrete. We could use her.”

“Good, then, if you have no further objections, you all have assignments. Barton and Romanoff, I have transports for you in two hours. Carter, would you rather work here or back in New York?”

“If it isn’t any trouble I’d rather stay in one home base for the moment.” She packed her things as the other two agents took their assignments from Coulson and wandered off, Barton immediately bending Romanoff’s ear. She guessed he was wondering the same thing Peggy was, what in the world she might have against a woman who most had assumed dead for decades.

“Romanoff takes a long time to warm up to people.” Coulson clearly knew the tenor of her thoughts and watched the petite red head as she walked away. “Like I said, she’s not particularly close to anyone, and the program she went through…”

“I know what the program she went through was like.” She still remembered well the girl’s school in Russia, of the children handcuffed to beds and turned into psychotic murderers.

“You perhaps know some.” Coulson grimaced, sadly. “Romanoff is a damn good agent who very much wants to make up for the things she’d done. Just...keep that in mind.”

Her mouth thinned, tightly. “I hadn’t assumed anything else. Now, until I get a transport back home, do you have a corner for me to set up shop?”

“I think for a former director, we can manage more than a closet somewhere. Come on, let me show you what SHIELD has become while you were away.”

“I will say this, Agent Coulson, it has become much larger than I had ever imagined.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy and Sharon start their own investigation.

“So where do we start?”

“With these!” Peggy hauled a box of reports onto the glass and wood topped desk of her New York office, setting it down with a resounding thump. 

Sharon eyed it all blandly. “Old reports?”

“And files, newspaper articles, anything that SHIELD had on Stark Industries and Tony in particular.” Peggy was already up and at the glass dry-erase board, marker in hand as she began making notes. “Tony Stark perhaps is known in the media as a playboy and philanderer, but that doesn’t mean he allows anyone in. How did a group of terrorists from Afghanistan find out where he was going and what he was doing and in enough detail to just pluck him away like that?”

“US Army intelligence isn’t as smart as they think they are,” Sharon retorted, sipping at a cup of coffee like it was a lifeline. She’d arrived on the first flight in that morning, sleepy eyed and curious.

Peggy smirked only a little as she wrote it on the board. “Not outside of the realm of impossibility having worked with them in the past, but I don’t know if that is all of it.”

“A vengeful ex-lover?” Sharon booted up her laptop. “Or a plant, someone sent to spy on him, there to seduce him and figure out his secrets.”

Peggy doubted both, considering how the younger Stark didn’t seem any more emotionally attached than the elder one to his liaisons and also the fact that Howard had famously been burned that way himself. She added it anyway, on the off chance that Tony had fallen into the same trap as his father. “What about his close associates, people at Stark Industries, those he has had business deals with, rivals?”

“Not that he has many known ones outside of the obvious ones. Stark Industries has known competition with Hammer Industries out in Queens. They’ve bucked for the same military contracts, but thus far Stark has shut them out. Hammer has taken mostly lower priced federal work and things for other foreign governments. Tony Stark being out of the picture may loosen up some of those contracts to allow Hammer a chance in.”

Peggy wrote that up on the board. “Anyone else?”

“He doesn’t precisely have a lot of ‘friends.’ He lives in Malibu most of the time, he’s only ever here in the city for business, so most of those who work closely with him would be in the Los Angeles facility. He does have a research team here too, but Stark is hands-on in his development, he usually tends to go to his teams with fully formed ideas. I’m guessing they aren’t terribly involved in the frontline R&D, but they are in the next phase of it, and he usually works pretty closely with them.”

“Maybe disgruntled workers, people who have worked on his projects for years and never been given credit for it, people who feel he’s stolen their work and taken credit for it.” Peggy’s hand flew across the glass as they brainstormed, her handwriting messy as she spilled ideas across the expanse. “A stray comment to any one of them and they may have dropped it into the ear of someone paying for information. Perhaps we should look through payroll records and bank statements, see who might have been getting paid a bit under the table for something like that.”

“That’s not going to be pretty.” Sharon wrinkled her nose. “I will guarantee that there were a lot of engineers doing just that and probably none of them were trying to sell out Tony Stark.”

“Let’s keep it to just the ones who pose the most threat, shall we.” Peggy was uninterested in doing an audit on Stark Industries employees, though perhaps Tony should. “All right, any other ideas. What about his personal staff?”

“He has a secretary, Bambi Arbogast, who had worked for his father back in the day, so I think that she is as loyal as the sun when it comes to Starks.” Sharon scanned whatever was on her computer screen. “She has an office staff that work under her, administrative assistants, the like. There is a legal team that works closely with Stark and his movements, mostly because he’s often doing things that require legal council...and that’s just his personal life.”

Peggy could just imagine. “Have there been any major legal cases tied to him of late?

Sharon blinked. “In just the last few months?”

Peggy groaned. “How about anyone who might have been spending any time with him of late, perhaps someone who he had been seeing socially, spending long weekends with, having to one of his...parties. I’m sure the tabloid papers are filled with that sort of thing.”

“That list would be ridiculously long and likely inaccurate.” Sharon considered, thoughtfully. “His personal assistant might know.” 

Peggy spun back to the glass board. “What’s her name again?”

“Pepper Potts.” Sharon pulled a file out of one of the boxes and opened it up on the desk between all of them. There wasn’t much to it, but it did have what looked like an employee photograph on the front page, a pretty woman with strawberry blonde hair and a frank, direct expression on her face. “She’s Stark’s personal assistant, has been for seven years. She’s sort of famous for it, I think just because she has managed to stick with the job and not run off screaming.”

“That and she’s clearly very capable dealing with Stark shenanigans.” That was something Peggy could empathize with. She glanced through the basic paperwork, noting her given name was Virginia, that she came from an apparently very normal family in California, that she was educated and competent and had worked for another technology industry executive before being snagged by Stark. What was more it didn’t look like she was the kind who was trying to sleep her way into either a position at his company or into half of his fortune as his wife. “Has anyone spoken with her yet?”

“No one has spoken with anyone at Stark Industries yet. Do you want to add her to our list of people to connect with?”

“Yes,” Peggy passed the file back to her. “Who else is close to Stark at SI?”

“He has a driver, Harold Hogan, goes by Happy, also serves as Stark’s bodyguard. He’s an ex-boxer, but outside of managing access to Stark when he’s out and about I don’t know how much actual protection he does.”

“Clearly not enough if he got kidnapped,” Peggy murmured as Sharon passed that file over. Hogan seemed to be harmless enough, someone who had fallen into the employ of Tony and who had never left. Likely there was a story there, one that seemed to mimic Mr. Jarvis’ relationship to Howard. “My guess is that between Potts and Hogan they are perhaps some of Stark’s most loyal employees, but they may have an idea of who might not be. We should make arrangements to have someone speak to them.”

“Got it,” Sharon typed quickly before scanning through more digital files. “What about Obadiah Stane?”

“Who is he again?” Coulson had mentioned him, but it wasn’t a name that was familiar to Peggy from Howard’s past. He was likely someone who came after.

“Obadiah Stane, COO and second in command at Stark Industries. He runs the company for the most part.” Sharon flipped her laptop around to show a video of a tall, bald man speaking. “He has served as Stark’s mentor since the death of his father.”

“How was he connected to Howard?” Peggy watched the video of the man accepting some sort of award somewhere.

“Business partner, really.”

“Howard never liked sharing his business with anyone.”

Sharon shrugged, turning her computer back. “In your time that might have been the case, but by the 70s he was running his own company, doing massive research, and helping to run SHIELD. Something had to give, so I think Stane came in as the answer to all of that.”

“And is he close to Stark?”

“He did accept this award on Stark’s behalf,” Sharon replied, looking at the video. “In fact it was the night before Stark flew to Afghanistan.”

“Where was Stark at?”

Sharon snorted. “Stane says he was hard at work, but there is video footage of Stark at the craps tables until Rhodes found him later.”

“So Stane clearly covered for him.” Peggy ruminated, wandering to the other side of the board, scribbling down a list of potential Stark allies, ones that would either know who could be out for him or who at least had suspicions. “We may want to consider speaking to this group first. They would know Stark’s movements better, particularly in the days and weeks leading up to his disappearance.”

“Right,” Sharon murmured as she made a note to herself. 

Peggy considered the list scribbled on the board. “Has anyone questioned his friend yet, Colonel Rhodes?”

Sharon paused, regarding her notes. “No, not outside of the Department of Defense, I’m sure. Do you want to add him to the list?”

“Yes,” she replied, writing his name. “Is he still in Afghanistan?”

“No, he’s based out of Edward’s Air Force Base in Southern California, but I believe he goes back and forth between the two.”

“I want to talk to him to get a better idea of the series of events that lead up to Stark’s disappearance.”

“So I guess this means I’m going to Los Angeles to start poking around.” Sharon offered before Peggy could contemplate the idea. She turned to stare at her niece archly, finding she was offering the same expression back at her. Peggy wasn’t sure she liked that much.

“You are still learning how to function in the modern world,” Sharon argued, making a point that Peggy didn’t like, but had to concede. “If you walk into Stark Industries and gape at everything they will wonder if something is wrong with you. I have no personal connection to the Starks and I’ve had enough field training not to fall on my face. I’m the logical choice.”

Peggy wanted to pull out her stellar war record as a spy and field agent, but had to admit Sharon was right. She also had to admit that there was more than a bit of herself in her niece and for a brief moment Peggy empathized with her mother and how she had felt raising her. “You are right. Do you think you can get on a flight to Los Angeles tomorrow to talk to them?”

“Easy! There are a zillion direct flights to Los Angeles from here everyday. I can let the LA field office know and then set up time to chat with people at Stark Industries. The main offices are in El Segundo, right by the airport, I could be there and back in a day or two.”

Peggy remembered a time when there wasn’t even a Stark Industries office in the city. “I was there only once, years ago.”

“The Whitney Ford case,” Sharon piped up, much to Peggy’s surprise. She shouldn’t have been, given Sharon had already admitted her fondness for those kind of stories at bedtime. “You were on that case, weren’t you? The one with the girl who was found frozen solid in Echo Park?”

“In the summer!” Peggy could well recall just how beastily hot it had been. “I didn’t know those case files were still around. That’s from the SSR days, before SHIELD. I was sent to assist Sousa with it. It was a bit too strange for even the LAPD. It turned out that the movie star, Whitney Ford, had tapped into something that physics couldn’t even explain. She was a rather brilliant mind underneath the movie star facade, and had investigated an angle that cracked open energy even she couldn’t control, called 'zero matter' as I recalled. It could tear through everything and threatened to destroy reality itself. It ended badly for everyone involved in that incident, but most especially for Whitney, who ended up going insane. Last I heard she had been committed and all her notes had been confiscated by the SSR.”

That had only been two years ago for Peggy. It had been decades for everyone else, especially Sharon, who now gaped at her as if she had actually said she’d gone to Mars, just like her father’s ridiculous stories. Peggy shrugged, clearing her throat. “I’m sure the old files are around in the records somewhere.”

“They are, it’s just you rattled that off like it was just a normal day in the office,” Sharon murmured faintly. 

“It was for me,” Peggy replied, primly, feeling a tad unsettled by the clear awe on both of their faces. “It was a case no different from any other one.”

“I don’t know why any of us should be shocked you time traveled,” Sharon muttered, closing her laptop. “Seriously, between Captain America and now extra-dimensional movie stars, time travel is perhaps the least crazy thing about you I’ve heard about.”

Peggy snorted, eyeing her niece with mild asperity. “I had perfectly normal work during the war.”

“In which you fought against a man who could literally peel his face off to reveal a red skull underneath all of that,” Sharon retorted, pointedly, only underscoring her argument.

“I didn’t fight him, I merely helped Steve and the Howling Commandos fight him. I may have helped destroy the suspension on his car after chasing after him, however.”

“You call Captain America ‘Steve’?”

“Because I knew him! I’m hardly a mythical character,” Peggy retorted, snagging a pen to twiddle in agitation at the idea of it. “Everyone acts as if I’m some sort of god from high on the mountain come down to them. I’m not! I’m just a normal person caught up in insane circumstances, much like most of the world at any given time.”

It was unsettling enough, having made the choices she had, arriving in this strange place, trying to find her footing in this world, to add to it this notion that she was some sort of heroic figure on the level of Captain America felt overwhelming. It was as if she stepped into one of Sharon’s fairy tale stories about her life, finding herself portrayed as some sort of epic figure and not the flesh and blood person she was, the kind who had faults and problems, the kind who made mistakes often, the kind who had hair-brained schemes, like jumping decades in the future just because someone asked her to. The more agents in SHIELD looked at her as if she was some sort of faultless heroine from some mythic past, the more removed from herself she felt.

“You asked me, Sharon, when you first came to meet me about how I could just leave everything...leave the family. I have to admit, when I made the decision to come forward, I didn’t even reconsider it. I was like a hound on the scent, and in all honesty my friends, my family were secondary to the idea that I had to go and save the world. It’s like...from the moment I heard of Michael’s death I’ve been running full tilt into all the adventure and madness he told me I should seek. I never think in the moment about who I get hurt in the process. People I care for, people who meant a lot to me, have died or been hurt because of the decisions I made, because I throw myself into the case. There is nothing heroic in that. I try, God knows I try, to do what is good and right in the world, to be a good person, but that hardly makes me heroic. I’m not Steve Rogers, I’m not this perfect human being who just is good all the time. I have made mistakes, I’ve hurt people greatly, including our family - my friends - all in the actions I’ve taken.”

She had caught her niece off guard. Truth be told, Peggy had caught herself off as well in her tirade. Sharon sat still, watching her in quiet shock over her laptop, clearly not expecting this melt-down from Peggy and looking a little shell shocked at the vociferousness of it. Her surprise withered the worst of Peggy’s agitation, leaving her feeling empty and guilty at having unloaded on the other woman so unexpectedly.

“My apologies, Sharon, I just..I don’t know what I expected on the other side of this, really. I hadn’t thought of it. In 1948 I was fighting tooth and nail for every inch of respect I could get. In 2010 I’m treated as if I hung the moon. Everyone acts as if I founded SHIELD all by myself, and it’s not true. If it weren’t for Phillips agreeing and applying the right political pressure in the right sort of measure, it would have never happened. I wouldn’t have been anywhere without his years of experience and unflappability in the face of insane odds. Howard...if he hadn’t had faith in me I wouldn’t have done it. For all the times I wanted to punch him in the face for his arrogance and short-sightedness, he was the only one who stood up and said out loud that I could do it. If I hadn’t had people like the Edwin...or Ana, Daniel, Angie, Michael, Steve, all of whom believed in me all along the way, I would have been a mess. All those pieces are what made me who I am. I’m not some superhero, I’m just a person like everyone else.”

Sharon was quiet for a long moment, her expression inscrutable. When she did speak, she did so carefully, reaching for the half-finished drink by her computer. “I suppose it is a bit hard to come through time and find history has made you out to be a paragon when you thought you were just the world’s most messed up human.”

Peggy chuckled softly, tossing the pen aside. “You know half the stories people believe are amazing are because I was incredibly stubborn and surprisingly foolish, and got myself in trouble I didn’t need to get myself into.” She thought of all the times she had been patched up from wounds that should have killed her but didn’t.

“What, a member of the Carter family doing something foolhardy that puts them in mortal danger? You don’t say?” Sharon’s deadpan expression had a flicker of a smile as she sipped from her cup. “Peggy...look, I can’t say I understand what you are going through. I couldn’t in a million years. This is all strange for you, I get it. But despite what you may think of all this, what you did, you left behind something that was special to people, that meant a lot to people. Between you and Steve Rogers, you two made people want to be better people, to do things better, stand up for people, and that’s good. I’m certain that you both were flawed people, but that doesn’t mean that what you came to represent for people was any less for it.”

“And if I can’t live up to people’s expectations?”

Sharon shrugged. “Then that’s on them. We are the ones who made them. Just...be true to you and patient with us. I’m still getting used to the idea you are flesh and blood and not just a figure from my father’s bedtime stories. Maybe I can try to be better about remembering that, too.”

“Now I feel horrible for blowing up about it.” Peggy had a feeling this would spiral into self-recriminations rather quickly. “Perhaps this is a bit more overwhelming than I bargained for.”

“I don’t know why you feel that way,” Sharon snorted dryly, sarcasm thick as she closed her computer. “I’m going to stake out an empty office and start making travel plans. Are you going to loop Coulson on our plan of attack?”

“By email even,” Peggy replied, somewhat proud she had learned the art form. “In the meantime I will work on the files we have and see what we glean from them. We will have to work quickly. The US military has suppressed it for now, but it will break sooner or later unless we find Stark first.”

“And the global security community will absolutely lose their minds knowing the man who builds their weapons is missing - not to mention the hit to Stark Industry shares.”

“Let’s hope we can find him before it comes to that.” Peggy knew that was a fool’s hope at best. The minute it all broke looks there would be a firestorm exploding and most of it directed at the US government and their handling of the situation, and justifiably so, but it would complicate their efforts even further. “For all the insanity I did have to put up with from Howard, at least he never got captured in a war zone.

Sharon rose, gathering her things. “I think you will find that despite the surface resemblance to the man you knew, Tony Stark is very much his own person. Just saying, don’t rely on your memories of Howard to judge his son.”

Peggy pondered that bit of advice as Sharon left, realizing not only how sound it was, but that she may have underestimated her niece.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the news of Tony's disappearance breaks to everyone else.

It wasn’t a question of if the news of Tony Stark’s current status would go public, it was when it would. Much to Peggy’s surprise, it took another three days for it to go public. When it did, however, it went off like the media atom bomb that Coulson and Peggy had been expecting.

_Billionaire and Stark Industries CEO Tony Stark is missing somewhere in Afghanistan. Government sources suspect that local terrorist cells are involved…_

_In an official statement today, the Pentagon says that it has been mounting every resource available in the search Stark, despite saying nothing about his disappearance over four weeks ago…_

_Chief Operating Officer and close friend of Tony Stark, Obadiah Stane, said in a statement today that he has full faith in the US State Department and their work with the government of Afghanistan in bringing Mr. Stark home. Stark Industries stock took a hit with the news, falling off by 10 points to stand at…._

_Why all this secrecy around the whereabouts of Tony Stark? I mean, he’s a US citizen, captured, perhaps killed by terrorist forces out to destroy democracy. Had this been a journalist, we’d have been strafe bombing Kabul by now…_

_There’s a gathering outside of Stark Tower right now as well wishers have gathered to leave mementos in front of the iconic building midtown. A similar shrine has appeared in Queens just outside of the sight of the future Stark Expo, which has been in construction now for over a year. Most have come to leave signs of support for the eccentric and colorful billionaire who has been held captive now for several weeks…_

_We are doing everything in our power to ensure that Mr. Stark is returned home to America where he belongs, safe and sound, and to have a full Senate investigation into the lax response of our own military in bringing one of our citizens home..._

Peggy clicked off the face of the disingenuously concerned Senator Stern with the remote control, glaring at the still glowing television screen in her office. She missed the days when most news came from only a limited amount of resources. The modern obsession with a 24-hour news cycle on television all the time meant that the moment Tony’s disappearance broke, everything from the cable news networks to the entertainment ones were covering the story. Her head was spinning as she tried to grasp the tail of the tiger, as it were, and found it careening about faster then she could lay a finger on it. Now the world knew that Tony Stark was missing, with some even wondering if he was even still alive.

She hoped he was alive, he had to be alive. Scott Lang had been very particular in what he said, Tony was one of the two men at the heart of the conflict in the Avengers, which meant he was something of a leader. Steve was the other. If they found one, they could find the other one, or at least she hoped so. She couldn’t just let Howard’s son die alone somewhere because of the incompetence of his own government.

Beside her at the desk her cell phone flashed to life, catching her attention with Coulson’s name. He likely had been watching the same news feed she had. She neatly slid her finger across the screen, pleased she had figured out this bit of the technology as she raised it to her ear. “I’ve been watching,” she opened without preamble.

“I’m only shocked it hadn’t come out before now. I wonder who leaked.”

“Could have been anyone,” Peggy mused, looking at her dry erase board, her notes still up. “Sharon flew to Los Angeles talking with employees there, so they are aware. Chances are high Stark Industries released it hoping to get control of the story in case the worst has happened.”

“Doesn’t make our job easier,” he groused. He was right, it didn’t. “Has she found anything?”

“She’s spoken with Stark’s assistant, Pepper Potts.” Peggy wasn’t one to judge names, but that was one she was surprised a woman of Virginia Potts’ talent would want to still use professionally. “I have to say, judging from Sharon’s account of the conversation I am a bit shocked SHIELD didn’t recruit her to work for them, that woman is as careful and protective of his secrets as a well groomed tiger. She did state that the trip to Afghanistan was top secret, only herself, his driver, Colonel Rhodes and Stane knew about it in the company. She can’t speak for the Department of Defense, but she perhaps did have some very understated opinions on the matter.”

Coulson chuffed on the other end of the line. “I bet she did. Honestly, from the way they’ve managed this whole matter I’m beginning to think that it’s a wonder this hadn’t happened before. Did she say whether there was any evidence of a credible threat that they were aware of?”

“None, but then again with a man of Stark’s high profile how many threats do they likely get a day? Chances are high that if there was even a hint of something they didn’t notice it or pay attention, or simply assumed that the military would be aware and take care of it. Whatever the case, Sharon’s assessment is that Potts is as honest and protective of Stark as anyone could be and so if there was a leak from somewhere around Stark, it wasn’t her.”

“What about anyone else?”

Peggy pulled up Sharon’s communication with the full extent of her assessment. “Sharon spoke with Stark’s driver and bodyguard, Hogan, to see if there had been any suspected threats. He shared that there were none he was aware of, though Stark had been in the company of one Christine Everhart, a reporter I believe? She had spent the night with him the evening before. I doubt that the woman had been in his company for much beyond that or learned of anything other than what she needed for her own story interests. Sharon is following up with Ms. Everhart on the matter now, but she will have to be careful, the woman is a reporter.”

“Wonderful. Couldn’t he have hooked up with a showgirl or a cocktail waitress like everyone else does in Vegas?”

“Considering the city was little more than a small, backwood town when I last recalled it, I can’t speak to what anyone does in Las Vegas, though from what I understand it is like a more glittering, loud, and obnoxious Atlantic City.”

“The shows aren’t bad, though,” Coulson offered, earning a small snort out of Peggy. “Was Sharon able to find anything else?”

“Not really, she’s speaking with Stark’s main engineering teams later to see if there might be anything there, but she’s not hopeful. I have left messages with Obadiah Stanes' assistant, all of which have been unfruitful. Colonel Rhodes is in Afghanistan, but he offered to fly in to meet with me after a briefing with the Defense Department next week. How are your two out in the field?”

“A bit more fruitful but not really much more promising than yours. Romanoff’s contacts directed Barton towards a group known as the Ten Rings, a terrorist faction that is active in much of Central Asia but which seems to have a large foothold in Afghanistan.”

Peggy scrawled the name across the notepad by her computer, trying to place it in the plethora of information she had thrown at her over recent weeks. “The Ten Rings sounds rather dramatic. What are they about?”

“We don’t know, or rather we know very little. Most of what we got are murmurs and stories over the decades from different corners of Asia and Africa. The first solid evidence we got of them in this area was in the mid-80s when the Soviets were in the middle of their war in the region. Most chalked them up to a resistance group, much like any of the others, and when the Soviets were finally driven out they stuck around, controlling the territories the Taliban didn’t get and engaging in marauding and warfare ever since. Those that we did pinpoint were mostly warlords, those who created small fiefs of their own, fighting to take more and more territory. My guess here is that there is someone out there affiliated with them who is eager to expand his holdings and figured snagging a celebrity figure like Tony Stark with all of his weapons acumen might be a good start.”

What little Peggy did know of the current political situation told her that none of this was any good for any of them, least of all Tony. “So in the United States' desire to beat the Soviets at their own game, did we create them?”

Should could hear Coulson temporizing on the other end of the line. “I would say that we didn’t create them but we certainly did give them life. This has been the game that’s been played since the end of World War II, even you know that. The West paid for governments they want in countries, the Soviets funded insurgents to fight against them. The Soviets forced governments they support into power, the US then would fund insurgents to fight against them. What no one considered in any of this was just who the insurgents were and if we weren’t siding with the devil in order to win our real-life game of Risk. It was only later that anyone really thought about the sort of monsters we ourselves created.”

Peggy stared at the jet black words scribbled on the yellow legal pad with a certain fatalistic gloom. “We fought a war thinking we would end it all and finally make a peaceful world, not create a new set of horrific problems.”

Coulson’s breath whispered across the receiver of his phone as he sighed, she imagined pensively. “I don’t know if that is the way wars work. The goal is to hopefully stop escalations before it gets to the point where you don’t have a choice, right?”

“That was the theory, at least.” She had hoped SHIELD could do that, help prevent that level of escalation. It saddened her it didn’t. “Now we’ve created something that’s taken Howard’s son.”

“We have,” he replied simply. Coulson, as she was learning, was a man who was refreshingly frank without ever devolving into the level of rancor or meanness. He was just simply honest and matter-of-fact. “There is a certain irony in that groups like these Ten Rings are funded by us in order to maintain a certain power balance in the hopes of stopping larger wars, but in doing so we literally give them the weapons and manpower to become something worse. I will guarantee this is where their interest in Stark lays, one of them got ambitious and saw an opportunity to snag the gold goose and they took it.”

“What would they hope to get out of him?”

“My guess, it’s a hope of having him build a weapon for them that they could then take and replicate without him. Then they either ransom him back for an exorbitant fee, which I think is doubtful, or they kill him and still get the weapon and the plans. Whatever the case, they take to the hills knowing that US forces can’t find them and then rain havoc on the region with whatever they got out of the bargain and the US looks like idiots for letting it happen. What’s more, there’s not a thing SHIELD can do about it because they didn’t come to us.”

“Which is why Fury gave this priority.” Peggy’s head ached as she considered the full ramifications of what was going on. “So we are playing catch up to the US military establishment who dropped the ball in the first place and now have made the situation so much worse. Have you ever heard of the term SNAFU, Agent Coulson?”

“Situation normal: all fucked up?” There was a hint of a chuckle as he said it, earning a grin out of Peggy to hear the clean-cut man swearing like that. “Yes, Director Carter, that’s exactly what this is. I’m just hoping at the end of this we find Stark alive.”

“So do I.” If she had chosen to walk away and leave Howard holding this ball, the least she could do was repay him by saving his son. “I will tell you what I find out from Stane.”

“Good luck.” With that, Coulson hung up with a perfunctory goodbye, leaving Peggy staring at the phone’s fading image thoughtfully. Here she was, holding an object that was so far out of the realm of possibility that it hadn’t even figured in the images of the “bright, new tomorrow” they had all dreamed of in her past. Somehow they had convinced themselves that the future would be a shining place of peace and harmony. Perhaps it was more peaceful by comparison, yes, but for whom and at what cost. Sharon had said as much that night they had first met, when she raised her own concerns about SHIELD. Certainly in the war between powerful nations the United States had won, but places like Afghanistan had lost. Knowing Howard, he’d likely supported whatever actions were taken in the area, likely little knowing or foreseeing that this support would result in a fall out that would wrap up his own son.

Actions always have consequences.

The knock on her door roused her as she blinked up to Cassandra Kam’s curious, smiling face. “You looked pretty deep in thought there. Everything okay?”

Peggy waved vaguely at the television screen. “The news broke today.”

“I saw. I figured you would need a friendly face and a coffee break.”

It was the sort of kind gesture Peggy would never have gotten from the boys in the SSR in the day and it gave her pause as she considered. “I don’t know if I have time, but I do appreciate the offer.”

“I get it.” She wandered into her office all the same, eyeing the stacks of files spread across her desk and every other available surface. “Did you clear the archives of everything on Stark?”

“Practically.” Peggy had been pouring over everything, from patents, to old reports, to newspaper articles on Howard and Tony’s respective worlds. It was a heartbreaking tour of the life Howard had led once Peggy disappeared, once that had seemed driven by his work, particularly on the potential uses of the Tesseract, his fears of existential threats, and trying to reign in a brilliant, genius son who he had neglected out of his hyper-focus on the other two. “I’m trying to find some evidence of who or what might have tipped Stark’s whereabouts to the group who took him.”

Cassie nodded, picking up a file that had printed copies of several newspaper articles discussing the younger Stark’s wayward and misspent youth. The top copy had a photo of an impossibly young Tony, glassy-eyed, sallow-cheeked, and unrepentant, being forcibly led out of a police station by his father who looked little better. Howard’s grim anger under a headline that screamed something about Tony’s arrest - again - stood in contrast to Peggy’s memories of a man who would have laughed that sort of headline off if it were about himself. The two recalcitrant figures in the grainy color of the newsprint clearly had nothing good to say to each other. Despite the fact that the article and photo were over twenty-years-old, Peggy could feel the anger and irritation bleed out of it, a well of resentment between father and son.

“You know, I used to have a bit of a crush on him,” Cassie chuckled, holding up the article with a then teenage Stark on it. “Back before I knew what a hot mess he was, that is. I think he was romantically linked to some actress I liked at the time and I thought he was cute.”

“Stark’s have that effect on people,” Peggy snorted, sorting through her notes.

“Oh, but he had that ‘bad boy so broken’ vibe to him that I think appealed to my pre-teen heart.” Cassie laughed at her own younger self with an eye roll for the foolishness of youth. “I am sure there were perhaps many a young woman who thought they could get a hold of Anthony Stark and somehow fix him, mend that wounded heart, and show him real love.”

“I can’t say I’ve ever felt that impulse for anyone,” Peggy replied dryly, utterly baffled by it.

“I don’t know, it’s a phase I think some of us go through. I grew out of it after dating one of those bad boys and figuring out he was just a jerk.” She shrugged, setting the file aside. “Still, I always did feel sorry for Tony Stark a little bit. Imagine being a kid like him? Being rich is bad enough, you can’t ever totally trust people around you and you are surrounded by other kids who are social sharks, living just to tear others apart. Add to that being a genius who is a zillion times smarter than just about everyone aelse, which had to make it hard to relate to anyone, and he was like five years younger than most everyone he went to school with. Small wonder he got into the fast life so young, he probably was just trying to fit in somehow.”

It was a perspective on Tony that Peggy hadn’t even thought of, or really even thought to consider. “You aren’t half bad at this.”

“At what?”

“Getting into the head of a person...investigating.”

Cassie flushed but shrugged it off. “When you are managing properties for an organization who likes to keep a low profile, you have to be able to think of all the parameters without asking too many questions. People get nervous when they hear SHIELD is coming into town.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Peggy chuckled, glancing at the files thoughtfully. “If I asked Coulson and Hill politely, would you mind coming and helping me with my work? It would be different for you, yes, certainly not as outrageously elegant as New York real estate, but you would be aiding myself and Agent Sharon Carter out a great deal.”

“Doing real case work?” The other woman blinked at Peggy, stunned. “I hadn’t really considered it before.”

“Why not?”

Cassie shrugged, eyeing the clutter on Peggy’s desk. “I didn’t go to school for that. I was interested in law, actually, but freaked myself out about the bar. I fell into operations here because it was something I understood and could do easily.”

“I was supposed to get married and settle down with a family,” Peggy shrugged, leaning back in the frankly rather comfortable chair. “That was the expectation anyway, particularly for young ladies of my class. But I left school just before the war began. By the end of the year I was working at Bletchley Park as a codebreaker because it was a job they often gave to clever women like myself who were good at picking out patterns. After that...I suppose I fell into all the rest. I learned quite early on that sometimes life throws opportunities onto your lap. You don’t know where they are going to go or what you will be doing, but you take them and see what happens.”

Cassie’s studied her with narrow-eyed consideration. “Are you saying I should then take up your offer and see where it leads me?”

“I am not judging you for working acquisitions if that’s what you want.”

“No, it’s just...I don’t know. I’ve not done this before.” She picked up another file. “I am happy to help if you are happy to teach me.”

“All you need is an eye for detail and a head for contextualization and you’ll be fine.” Peggy directed her to a chair and set the file with the article on Tony’s arrest in front of her. “We are looking for anyone who might have reason or cause to be interested in removing Tony Stark from the field of play. You are more acquainted with this modern world than I am, and Sharon is already on the ground asking questions. My hope is that between the three of us here and the two Coulson has on the ground we can gather enough data to try and pinpoint something tangible.”

Cassie still didn’t look as if she was certain this was a good idea. “How many people does it take to find one lost billionaire in an Afghan desert?”

“Whatever it takes to find him,” Peggy replied grimly, glancing at the article with it’s faded photo of Howard and Tony. “His father would never forgive me if I didn’t.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy formulates a plan of action.

“The full weight of SHIELD and its resources and we can’t find the richest man in the world?” Despite his best efforts at neutrality and calm, even through the video screen and the magic of telecommunications, Peggy could feel Coulson’s frustration. Not that she could blame him, it had been nearly a month since this particular bombshell had landed in SHIELD’s lap and Peggy felt they were no further along than when they started. Weeks of work and a pile of dead ends left them with nothing more than the US military had...which was little more than nothing.

“It’s not nothing,” Romanoff murmured from her screen somewhere in a location Peggy didn’t recognize, but looked like a seedy bedroom in some run down part of the world. It was night wherever she was and she was dressed down, her long red hair was pulled up behind her head, making her appear impossibly young as she appeared to be scrolling through something on a screen. “Barton did find intel on the Ten Rings and their activities in Afghanistan, more than we had beforehand.”

That was a plus, one Peggy quickly jumped on. “Thanks to his work we know that they have been supplied for years through back channels with all manner of weapons, including Stark Tech. Do you think they were starting to get greedy?”

“That or Stark might have been.” Romanoff lifted a pale shoulder in her night clothes, non-committal. “After all, it’s something we can’t rule out.”

Both Sharon and Cassie Kam were huddled around her desk to be better seen on camera. They both glanced at each other, but it was Sharon who spoke up. “There were several large shipments that went out over the last few years to Afghanistan. I found the invoices in the system when I was poking around there, but when I asked about it everyone seemed to think they were part of a US military shipment authorized by the company.”

“Who signed off on them,” Coulson pressed quietly to Sharon, who gave Peggy half an apologetic smile.

“It would seem like it was Stark, but...honestly, it’s hard to say. He’s so hands off with things it could have been someone on his staff auto signing for him. Hell, he could have been doing it without paying any attention, knowing him.”

“I do that all the time when I am not paying attention,” Cassie offered, clearly trying to be helpful.

“What’s your take on it, Natasha,” Coulson flipped to her as she looked stoically thoughtful. Peggy had never seen anyone manage the smooth-faced, non-expression so completely as Natasha Romanoff.

“It’s possible, Stark doesn’t strike me as being a details kind of person. He likes leaving that to others. He could be aware of it and just not caring or he could be unaware of it and just not caring. However, he is a man who makes his money off of conflict and war and there is plenty enough of that in Afghanistan. The Ten Rings are just one of any number of insurgents, but they are one of the more powerful ones now that the Taliban has been undermined. My contacts had a lot to say and little real knowledge of them outside of the fact that they don’t think they are really completely homegrown. He suspects they are somewhat privately funded from the outside by groups interested in seeing chaos in regions like Afghanistan with the hopes that the instability will help feed their own particular interests. That’s why I mentioned Stark, because he would be one of those types.”

Peggy tapped her pencil in irritation at that assessment, trying not to glare at the other woman on the other side of the screen. Romanoff had done nothing to be friendly to her, but it was hard to just dismiss what she had to say. She was right, it was an angle to consider and one they should talk about, but it also didn’t feel right, not in Peggy’s gut.

“Howard never really cared about the money,” she found herself blurting, tossing her pencil on the notepad in front of her. “All right, he cared a little, but it was more of the prestige of it all, the respect and access he got with it. At his heart he cared far more about creating than he did about wealth and having the freedom to do what he wanted without being beholden to anyone. I can’t imagine he would allow his son to sell his technology knowingly to those who would use it to try and terrorize and enslave others, that stood against everything Howard fought for!”

“Tony Stark isn’t Howard,” Romanoff replied with her simple bluntness, cold but not overly so. Still, she might as well have kicked Peggy in the gut with one of her elegant maneuvers for all it hit her. “And US national policy stopped caring about who got hurt in their games of political maneuvering decades ago. If Stark is involved in some under-the-table dealing with the Ten Rings, perhaps it was all state sanctioned, some backroom compromise between politicians. They got him to sell under the table and it all went south on him. It’s hard to say.”

Peggy couldn’t believe that, but she couldn’t refute it either. “So have we abandoned the idea he was a victim of circumstance?” She directed that last question at Coulson with perhaps a bit more severity than she had intended. She could see the man cringe just a tad, visibly smarting under his cool demeanor and felt a bit triumphant to see him blink in guilt at her.

“No, but we do have to consider every possibility, and the other hasn’t gotten us very far, unless you found something that could point us in a better direction.”

Peggy wished they had. “Sadly, no. His closest contacts seem above board. Sharon’s investigation turned up little behind the scenes there.”

“I wouldn’t say it turned up little,” Sharon clarified with a bit of an eye roll. “Stark has his enemies, even in his own organization. He’s got several who think they are smarter than they are and obviously under-appreciated, but none of them have the access or the knowledge to have sold him out.”

“What about his personal contacts,” Coulson cut in.

Here Peggy nodded towards Cassie, who gulped and gathered her files and her wits to address Coulson. “Tony Stark has a list of people a mile long who could potentially want him dead.” 

She pulled her tablet towards her, tapping onto the glass and transmitting it to the large screen, sharing it through SHIELD’s satellite data network, a concept that made sense to Peggy, but still amazed her. “These are just the ones I assume he pissed off. I’ve not gotten into his father’s contacts or his maternal grandfather’s contacts, both of whom ran in some pretty interesting circles.”

“I can imagine,” Coulson murmured. “Who are the most likely people who would want to see Stark removed from the picture.”

“I got Justin Hammer on the list, of course.” She pulled up a photograph of a thin man who might have been handsome if he didn’t remind Peggy vaguely of a weasel. “He is Stark's main rival. Up until ten years ago he was an unknown weapons engineer subcontracting for another company, but somehow got the ear of General Thaddeus Ross. Ross gave him a shot, mostly as Ross is known to love having big weapons at hand and doesn’t like having to put up with others messing around with them, like Stark. He helped get Hammer several lucrative contracts with the Army, but the big money ones were always out of reach because the US military-at-large was tied mostly to Stark.”

“And this Hammer would want the competition removed.” Peggy considered him, reading the man’s information quickly. “Is he the type who would stoop to espionage, kidnapping and potential murder to get ahead?”

It was Natasha on her end who answered. “Hammer would absolutely, he’s a worm, and not as bright as he thinks he is, but he’s opportunistic.”

Peggy was only surprised the operative knew who Hammer was. She shouldn’t have been. But Cassie shocked her even more by challenging Romanoff’s assessment. “I agree, he’s not above kissing up to power when he can get to it and maybe he’s ruthless enough to do it, but I don’t know. Honestly, I think he’s pretty content pick up Tony Stark’s table scraps, hoping that he makes a misstep and that he can pounce on the opportunity. I saw his shares skyrocketed on the news of Stark’s disappearance.”

“I bet they did.” Sharon snorted, regarded the man in his pale gray suit with mild disgust. “Has he even made a public statement filled with kind platitudes and crocodile tears.”

“Yes on the platitudes, no on the tears. It was a very ‘thoughts and prayers’ kind of press release, hoping that Tony has a safe and quick return.”

“I bet,” Peggy sniffed, already deciding she didn’t like the man. “Right, who else.”

The image of a beautiful woman floated on screen, so gorgeously dressed she made Peggy even feel slightly shabby. “Rumiko Fujikawa, one of the first women to handle a family run company in Japan. She’s smart, capable, and Stark’s ex.”

“And a notorious party girl from what I understand and Stark’s perfect woman,” Romanoff called, apparently knowing exactly who she was.

Coulson cut to the chase. “And what does that have to do with his disappearance?”

Cassie clearly liked this theory, judging from the glitter in her dark eyes. “The word on the street was that early on in Stark’s reign at his company the two of them hooked up. He was young and inexperienced with Stark Industries, and at the time, Fujikawa's father was interested in seeing if he could manage a hostile takeover and use Rumiko as bait. She’s known to be...well, a bit of a dark and dangerous lover in the bedroom and played on Stark’s willingness to give anything a go. Stark at first seemed like he was all in, until it turned out he had flipped the tables on the pair and had taken their company outright himself. He gave it back to Rumiko only the condition she beg for it.”

Peggy eyed the fierce looking woman in the photograph. “How did he make her beg?”

Cassie actually flushed at this. “I’ve heard rumors.”

For the first time ever Peggy heard Romanoff actually snort on the other end of the line, something like respect flickering across her otherwise placid expression. “Nice.”

Even Sharon looked amused. Peggy, however, could feel her cheeks burn as she cleared her throat. “I don’t need to know. Is any of it true?”

“Who knows? What is known is that the two of them do not get along now. She tried to actively block his access to Japanese markets, but ultimately was unsuccessful. In any case, she denies everything about the story now, for obvious reasons, but there have been more than one attempt by corporate spies attached to her to get inside Stark’s inner circle.”

It didn’t feel right, but Peggy considered it. “Would she be ruthless enough to hire a hit on him?”

“It's salacious enough I sort of want it to be true, but I'm not buying this one. Frankly, it’s nearly two decades ago and I think she’s mostly moved on. Besides, given the amount of coverage of this, if it were tied to her we’d have heard by now, and that’s not press she wants.”

“And there’s nothing coming out of Japan here,” Romanoff chimed in. “China, sure, but Japan has to step carefully in Asian markets. I don’t think Fujikawa would want the sort of bad press that would come out being associated with terrorists.”

“Fair enough,” Peggy looked to Cassie. “Which leaves us with who else?”

Cassie threw up her hands as a handful of other photographs flickered to life. “Not much of anywhere. Stark has a lot of corporate enemies who wouldn’t mourn if he disappeared in the wilds of Afghanistan, like Nelson Jones of Roxxon and Norman Osbourne over at Oscorp. He’s got an angry and powerful ex or two, though honestly the fact you got dumped by Tony Stark is almost a badge of pride out there. I think they would sooner write tell-alls and make money off the profits. If there is anyone at Stark Industries who could be bribed into it, Sharon is more likely to find it. Most of his high-end friends are so tight with him I doubt they could be bought.”

Sharon brought up the obvious point. ““None of them have a good reason to demand it or the inside knowledge to make it happen. And even if they did, what sort of connections do they have to make it happen?”

“So this leaves us right where we began.” Coulson’s sigh echoed even through the office space in New York. Peggy wasn’t far behind him, honestly. Weeks of research and interviews and she felt they were getting nowhere. “Who haven’t we spoken to?”

“Stane,” Peggy replied in mild frustration at the recalcitrant COO of Stark Industries. “He’s been conveniently unavailable the last few weeks, I presume putting out fires and trying to handle the company in Stark’s absence.”

“Though it should be noted that he normally handles the company even in Stark’s presence,” Sharon blithely pointed out. “He’s rather politely avoided us on the whole.”

“Does Stane know about Howard’s connection to SHIELD,” Peggy directed this to Coulson, unclear on who did and didn’t know about Howard’s whole other secret life.

“Howard kept that secret from most everyone I know of. Even if Stane knows of it, it’s likely he thinks that Howard was a consultant.”

“You would think he would want Stark found if anything else to keep the stock prices up,” Cassie offered, frowning. “Does he know about the investigation we are running?”

“You’d assume he would get the idea if SHIELD is calling to meet with him,” Romanoff replied, looking thoughtful. “Stane, he had his own company once, right, before coming over to SI?”

Sharon pulled up the answer, already deep into files on her computer. “Yeah, a satellite technology company back in the early days of telecommunications. He’s a CalTech grad and got in on the ground level of that with some lucrative ties to NASA, but he has a background in computers and engineering. That’s how Stark found him. He bought out his whole company for the price of an executive vice presidency and a large chunk of SI stock.”

“Bet that made him a wealthy man,” Peggy mused, considering. “Sharon, where does Stane live?”

“Between LA and New York, mostly, depends on what he’s up to. SI’s main headquarters are in Los Angeles, but their board and most of their front-facing offices are here in New York in Stark Tower.”

“Does he have an office there?”

Her niece blinked. “Yeah, I’d assume so.”

Peggy glanced at the screen with Coulson and Romanoff. “I think I need to go pay him a visit.”

Romanoff arched an eyebrow in mild surprise. Coulson looked downright delighted. “You are going to just waltz in there?”

“Why not?” Peggy had done more outrageous things before in her life. “After all, if he’s not willing to come and see us, I feel that the least we can do is go and see him.”

A ghost of a smile haunted Romanoff’s otherwise stern expression. “I was wondering when you’d finally get around to doing that.”

Peggy made no comment as she looked to Coulson. “You have a problem with me seeing if he will talk.”

Coulson held his hands out wide, clearly eager to see what happened. “Keep me posted?”

“If I’m not arrested first,” Peggy called cheerfully, turning to the other two. “Who would like to come and with me on a bit of a shakedown?”

Neither had to be asked twice.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy confronts Obadiah Stane.

Peggy had yet to go to the building emblazoned with the Stark name on it that sat in midtown, but had seen it from a distance standing next to the familiar sleekness of the Chrysler Building. Compared to the former, it wasn’t a pretty building in her estimation, unlike the former buildings’s well planned geometric lines, Stark Tower looked like someone had taken two separate buildings and stacked them one on top of each other, one the solid concrete type preferred just after the war, the other a sleek, modern thing with the vague shape of a bird at the top. There was perhaps a metaphor in there somewhere about Starks in general, if Peggy cared to think about it, but she ignored it as she discreetly caught her reflection in the glare of the requisitioned vehicle Sharon had procured. It wouldn’t do to barge into a known businessman’s office looking like something of a crazed woman.

“You could just use the mirror on the visor,” Sharon teased, ignoring Peggy’s side-eye glare.

“I didn’t want to be assumed to be vain,” she muttered, but took up the advice as she clipped down the fabric covered sun protector and slipped open the plastic covering the mirror. Her more modern hair was clipped neatly, smooth and free of the pin curls she had worn for years. Her suit, ridiculously priced in Peggy’s estimation, was perhaps a touch too dark and severe for Peggy’s liking, but struck the appropriate note with the cream blouse that she brought with her from 1948, elegant and stern in equal measure, and didn’t look so different from something she would have worn then. She’d paired it all with a pair of practical, black and white Oxford style pumps so outrageously expensive she nearly hadn’t bought them till Sharon threatened to hide them in one of her bags if she didn’t. For all that price nearly made her faint, she had to admit she did rather love them both as they stood out and were handy weapons when it came down to it.

Cassie behind her in the large, jeep-like SUV blinked at Peggy in the mirror. “Honestly, you look more put together of a morning than I do when I’m going out on a date. Please don’t tell me you looked this good every day.”

“Worse, she wore this during the war too. I’ve seen the pictures. Imagine traipsing through a war zone with perfect eyeliner everyday.”

Peggy ignored them both “I also don’t want to look anything less than a professional. Stane has been sidestepping us on purpose and I’m taking the conversation to him. I need to be on point and making an impression if I am stepping into his space.”

That was a lesson she had learned early on in her years with the SOE and the SSR, however the world may be changing, it was still a world run by the rules of men. Even this one, she was slowly learning, still had it’s expectations of what was and wasn’t feminine and how that made a person act. The one lesson she learned early that was still just as true today as it had been decades ago was that if a woman walked into a room looking put together and polished and confident no one asked too many questions. She’d learned that lesson, ironically enough, from Howard himself - if you act like you know what you are doing no one will tend to question it. She reminded herself of that as she coolly emerged at the main lobby for the Stark Industries offices, a young man blinking mildly at her as she presented herself, flanked by Sharon’s no-nonsense severity and Cassie’s valiant effort to do the same. The young man glanced at them all curiously as Peggy reached for her badge. “My name is Director Margaret Carter with SHIELD. I’d like to speak with Mr. Obadiah Stane.”

The young man eyed her badge, then the badges of the other two women, before a nervous flicker turned to mild confused panic in his wide eyes. “I...errr...don’t know if Mr. Stane is in the building today.”

“I certainly hope he is as I'm not leaving till we’ve had a discussion on the current state of affairs. I’m sure you do know about Mr. Stark’s present missing condition?”

“Err..yeah,” he replied, and it occurred to Peggy the poor thing likely didn’t know what to do when an agency like SHIELD showed up demanding to speak to important people. “Can I...just call my manager?”

“Of course,” she smiled, hopefully encouragingly, as the fellow reached for the phone on the desk and explained his plight to someone on the other end of the line. There were several nods and much confirmation before he hung up, plastering a smile on his face. “You can go up to speak with Ms. Sprague upstairs, she’s Mr. Stane’s assistant. She’ll be happy to help you.”

She never saw anyone more happy to pass a buck. “What floor?”

“82nd, the elevators are down the hall to your left.”

“Thank you,” she smiled firmly, marching to the bank of shining doors. She recognized this cliche easily enough, they would be passed along to Stane’s assistant who would do a dance, run around them and then book a meeting that would never happen.

“Sharon, when we get upstairs, you distract this Ms. Sprague with questions on the case. Keep her off her feet. I want to know what she knows about Stark and his disappearance while keeping her preoccupied with you.”

Sensing the game Peggy was playing, Sharon smiled coyly. “I get to be the aggressive cop?”

“Just like in your criminal procedurals,” Peggy smiled wickedly at her. “Cassie, you will be the good cop to Sharon, assure her that you understand that it’s a trying time for everyone, but as we have been talking to everyone at Stark Industries it’s important for us to have this information to aid in Mr. Stark’s recovery. You think you can play up the sympathy?”

“I’ve got four years of high school theater, I’m not such a horrible actress.”

Sharon grinned. “ _Into the Woods?_ ”

Cassie snorted. “Eponine in _Les Mis_ and I didn’t leave a dry eye in that house.”

Peggy had no idea what any of it was about outside of the theater. “Right, we can compare our acting credentials later. Let’s focus on this objective, shall we?”

The 82nd floor of the building was bright, glittering and airy in a way that made Peggy’s eyes water. That it was the executive administrative floor was clear in that it was nicer and further up than everything else, but it looked far and away different than anything she was used to in terms of a high end executive. Certainly Hugh Jones’ marble and mahogany office suite was nothing like this high-tech wonderland she stepped into.

“Miss Carter?” A short, dark haired woman stood by a reception area, face plastered with the sort of polite but determined smile that said she had no intention of giving up anything she didn’t want to. “I’m Ms. Sprague, Mr. Stane’s assistant. I was told you needed an appointment with him?”

“Actually, no, I need to speak with him, right now if I may.”

As expected, the woman’s smile never slipped, but it did steel itself considerably as she managed to look ever so regretful. “Ahh, well, I’m afraid that is impossible. Mr. Stane is in a meeting and won’t be available for the rest of the day.”

“So he is in his office today?”

Only a flicker of her eyes in the direction of where Peggy assumed Stane’s office lay betrayed her otherwise politely firm demeanor. “I’m sure Mr. Stane would love to sit down and discuss with you further…”

“Considering that Mr. Stane has avoided all SHIELD inquiries for a month, I highly doubt that,” Peggy shot back, earning a small blink of shock from the otherwise thoroughly composed woman. “You do realize why we are here, correct?”

“I don’t presume to know Mr. Stane’s dealings with outside parties, such as SHIELD, but if you wish to discuss arrangements…”

“Wow, you do not let up,” Sharon cut in smoothly, arms crossed as she studied the woman with perhaps not-so-feigned amazement. “We are trying to find Tony Stark, missing in a desert, or perhaps you hadn’t heard? You know, he’s the guy whose name is on this building, this company, likely signs your paychecks. You’re boss is supposed to be super close to him and yet hasn’t been willing to speak one word to the authorities about what he knows about his disappearance.”

That caught the otherwise unflappable woman flat footed as she gaped at Sharon. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’m saying your boss is conveniently making himself scarce in an investigation of a high profile missing person he is rather closely connected to.”

“Now, Agent Carter.” Cassie held up a hand between Sharon and Ms. Sprague, as if to quell Sharon’s growing head of steam. “We don’t want to cast aspersions when we haven’t got all the facts. After all, we don’t know anything about any of it, correct? But Ms. Sprague might know something.”

“Know what?”

“About Tony Stark’s disappearance,” Cassie replied simply. “I mean, that’s why we are here after all.”

Peggy could see the other woman’s reserves crack a bit at what was being implied and what was said outright by the other two agents. “I work for Mr. Stane, not Mr. Stark. If you want to discuss his movements then you would do better to discuss with either Mrs. Arbogast or Miss Potts.”

“I’ve just been talking with them, and now it’s your turn.” Sharon reminded Peggy very much of a bull terrier in the moment, relentless and unwilling to let go. “Tell me, Ms. Sprague, how aware were you of Mr. Stark’s trip to Afghanistan?”

“I was well aware of it as Mr. Stane was the one who brought it up. He and Mr. Stark planned it together.”

“Did you make the arrangements?”

“No, that was primarily the Defense Department, the Travel Department here at SI and I believe Miss Potts.”

“Did you know that Mr. Stark was nearly three hours late getting off the ground that day?” Sharon closed in on her, Cassie flanking her as she blocked the shorter assistant’s clear view of Peggy, who had melted quietly into the background.

Whatever the assistant’s views on Mr. Stane were, clearly she was far from impressed with Tony Stark. She scoffed at Sharon’s pointed, rapid-fire question. “I’m hardly surprised, Tony Stark acts like the world is there to serve his bidding. Why would a highly classified, US military visit be any different?”

Cassie jumped in just as Peggy slipped as quietly away as she could manage in her heavy heeled, brand-new shoes. “To your knowledge, was Mr. Stark frequently late for these kind of engagements?”

“Only in days ending in 'Y'.”

While the other two women had Stane’s assistant pre-occupied, Peggy made her way down the hall that Ms. Sprague had glanced at and quietly looked for Stane’s office. She didn’t have far to look. It sat just down a short expanse with an understated nameplate by the door. For all of the high tech wonder of the building itself, the door had a simple knob and was cracked open. Just inside she could hear a rich baritone, clearly having a conversation with another tinny, electronic voice that was barely audible.”

“I get the point, Jack, but for now things have got to keep going on schedule. We drop the ball on this and they will pounce. Yeah...Yeah...I’ll chat with Pierce, he owes me a few times over, I’m not worried about using up that credit anytime soon. Right...well they’re a wack job cult who worship space stones or something, it’s like a plot out of a video game. Yeah…”

Without preamble, Peggy pushed open the door the whole way and let herself into the room.

It was as spartan as the rest of the floor, perhaps because this was a secondary office and not the primary one. The view of the city was breathtaking, however, looking over the lower end of Manhattan out towards the glittering New York Harbor. The middle window panel in the office was shaded and dim, however, and some sort of projection was on it with schematics for something Peggy little understood, something called 'insight'. In front of it sat a basic desk of metal and wood, a large leather chair with its back turned to her behind it. Just over its top she could see a shining, bald head staring at the projection, looking out to the spread of the city beyond that.

“Mr. Stane,” she called, her voice ringing in the open and bright space. The chair swivelled just enough to allow the profile of an older man to peak around it at her, an earpiece glowing just to the side of his head.

“Hey, Jack, I’m going to have to call you back. Yeah...later today? Thanks.” With one long finger he touched the earpiece. With an audible beep it turned off as he worked it out of his ear, frowning at her. “If you’re a reporter looking for a story I have nothing to say.”

“Hardly one of those,” Peggy shot back, pulling the SHIELD issues badge out once more. “Margaret Carter, do you mind having a bit of a conversation with me?”

She watched his eyes alight on the badge, study it, then her for long moments, before he shrugged. “Did you tie up Nicole out front and is she all right?”

Peggy lifted a shoulder in a bland shrug as she graced him with a brief smile. “If you mean Ms. Sprague, she is fine. She is in discussion with two other agents at the moment.”

Stane was clearly calculating what just happened. Far from looking angry, he instead looked impressed and amused. “Quite clever. Not many can can set Nicole back on her heels.”

“I assume that’s why you hired her. She’s quite good, by the way, but I’ve had a bit of experience in the area of getting around personal secretaries. May I sit?” She waved to a cluster of armchairs around a low slung coffee table topped only by a glass container of rocks and some sort of succulent.

“Of course,” Stane replied, rising to meet her. He was a tall man, well over six feet, and had the build of someone who was once very athletic, perhaps still was judging from how fit he was for his age. She knew from his files he was well into his sixties, and for a man of older years was handsome, even charming as he wandered to take one of the pale gray chairs, settling into the cushions with a companionable smile. “So, why is SHIELD looking into the situation with Tony?”

“Because it’s been two months and no one else has done anything.” Peggy cut straight to the chase. “Our hands aren’t tied by public perception or US foreign policy interests.”

“Ah...Rhodes got a hold of you, didn’t he?”

Peggy sat primly on the edge of the armchair across from Stane, the table in between them. “SHIELD has a vested interest in ensuring that one of the architects of international security is returned safely and not kept overlong in the hands of a group who poses an international threat. I’m sure you would agree that it only makes sense we would want to find Mr. Stark.”

“If there is anything to be found,” he replied, a trifle despondently, the amused interest in Peggy melting into something more careful and worried. “Let’s be honest between ourselves, Miss Carter, do you think there is something there to be found?”

“No one has reported a body yet, Mr. Stane.” She meant her words to be a quiet assurance. Perhaps they were a trifle more confident then she had evidence for, but she had little reason to believe otherwise. “Why have you been avoiding our conversation?”

He shifted, crossing his long legs in front of him as he busied himself with studying his lithe fingers wrapped around one knee. “You know, twenty years ago, I got the call about his father. Middle of the night, sound asleep, they called me to tell me Howard and Maria were dead on the side of some back road in Long Island. One blown tire on a patch of ice and that was it. Tony was home, had just gotten back from some post-masters program in Switzerland, I believe, was partying with his friends, all of them drunk and passed out at the townhouse - you know, the way kids do when they are cutting loose. I’m the one who had to go out and identify his parents, then go back into the city and wake this kid up and tell him his parents weren’t ever coming home. Do you know what that is like, Miss Carter, having to break it to someone that the only family he’s ever known is gone in an instant?”

“Yes,” she said, simply, but not without empathy. She’d had several conversations to that effect during the war, as a matter-of-fact, to other children, and wives, and mothers. She’d been on the receiving end of one such for Michael. And of course, there had been Steve…

“You know then how hard that was. Kid didn’t cry for days, I don’t know if it was real to him. It was only after the wake it hit him. Howard was never particularly religious, I don’t think Maria was either, but her family wanted a big Catholic funeral. I didn’t want to subject Tony to it, but once his aunts were involved it was sort of out of his hands. He disappeared for hours while everyone was there to pay their respects, hundreds of people. It took me forever to find him. Here he was, a young man of twenty-one, curled up in some back room sobbing like he was six-years-old again, crying that he never got to tell them goodbye. Near broke my heart to see him like that.”

The open wound that was Howard’s death in the weeks since Peggy had followed Lang throbbed achingly for her, but Stane’s story did nothing to explain why it was he hadn’t replied to SHIELD’s requests. “I empathize with that loss, Mr. Stane, but I’m afraid it doesn’t precisely answer my question.”

Stane’s brief, watery smile was charming in its affability as he drew out a long, sad sigh. “I’m sorry I am wandering around it. Tony is just...family to me. He’s the closest I have to a son, closest I have to any family, and I promised him on that day I’d always be there for him. All of this...what if he is dead, Miss Carter? What if he’s gone and never found? Worse, what if he is and I have to identify another corpse, try to explain another death of a Stark? I promised him...I promised his father I would take care of him, and now he’s gone.”

“Is it better to live in limbo or find answers,” she challenged softly, not completely unempathetic. “SHIELD is trying to get those answers. Your assistance in that would be appreciated. We’ve already spoken to his assistant and driver and those at Stark Industries he worked closest to.”

“I heard,” he replied. “I hope you don’t think that Pepper or Hogan did anything…”

“No,” she quickly cut off that line of thinking. “No, I’m not sure anyone did anything untoward to Mr. Stark. My question for you was why was he there? The region is an obvious military zone, filled with UN forces, and prone to violence. Why would the US military agree to allowing a civilian there, especially one as high profile as Mr. Stark himself?”

“Ahh, that was Tony’s idea!” Stane chuckled, sadly. “I tried to talk him out of it, but Tony is too much of his father’s son. He loves a good opportunity to show off, and he had a new weapons system he’d been working on for years and was eager to play with. He’d hit on the idea of taking it to the source to have a big demonstration for the military, mostly because by design there weren’t a lot of places in the world where something as powerful as the Jericho could be demonstrated effectively and safely. Tony is a born salesman and he wanted to display its full capability.”

“And you went along with this plan?”

“I wouldn’t say I went along with it, no, but I learned a long time ago when Tony gets anything in his teeth he won’t let it go. I simply said I’d work with the DOD to ensure that all precautions would be taken, which I did. They assured me that they had all the extra security he could want for his trip, a full armored detail to protect him and a well guarded and protected route to and from the site. All he had to do was show up, shake hands, blow up a mountain, and go straight back to the airport and no one would be the wiser about it.”

Clearly, that hadn’t been the case. “Do you know anything about a group calling themselves the Ten Rings?”

“Ten Rings...no. Is that who you think took him?”

“Possibly, though they are one of many such groups in the region.”

“I can’t say I keep up with insurgent groups in Central Asia, I feel like there is a new one of them every week making demands and bombing innocent citizens.”

“They seem to be powerful enough and well armed, enough to pose a substantial threat in the region. As a man in the business of weapons, what are your thoughts on how they got to be so powerful?”

Something hard and cunning flickered into Stane’s otherwise grieving expression. “I’m afraid I don’t understand your question.”

Peggy at least feigned some sort of embarrassment. “I’m sorry, I perhaps wasn’t clear. We are aware that the Ten Rings is very well armed and supplied, it is why they have had such a presence in the region and we think it is why they were so able to easily kidnap Mr. Stark. It surprised us, that is all, to see a group like that able to take on a fully armed military convoy prepared against threats of that nature.”

Stane’s expression eased as he shrugged, considering. “Honestly, it could be anything. That place has been a hotbed for years. I know back in the 80s we sold the Taliban weapons by the crateful to fight against the Soviets and I’m sure they’ve gotten a hold of a lot of that, but since then the situation has been so insane it’s hard saying where they got what. We send lots of weapons to the UN forces who are stationed there and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where they came from, stolen off trucks and sold through back channels, black market. If not, Russia and Iran have avenues too, and neither one of them have been particularly careful on who gets what weapons, and if things go conveniently missing, say a crate of guns, they tend not to notice.”

“Stark Industries doesn’t keep track of where it’s own goods go?” Peggy knew they did and knew of the shipping manifests Sharon found, evidence that they had been sending weapons to Afghanistan.

“Well, lots of orders, lots of things going all over the place, especially for the US military. We are shipping everywhere, including out there. Once they are with our customers we don’t keep track of them. We hardly sell openly to terrorists like...Ten Rings, did you say?”

“Yes,” she confirmed, mulling over his explanation. “Pardon my asking this, but it is my job. To your knowledge every contract and shipment has been above board, correct?”

The hard edge flickered to life again, but quickly disappeared as Stane glowered at her. “Are you honestly suggesting that Stark Industries would be doing anything illegal?”

“Like I said, I have to ask the question, if nothing else to clear that it didn’t.”

It wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear. “Howard Stark built this company up over decades, well before you were born. He built it on the ideas of integrity and innovation, and he did it the right way, not by doing things underhandedly. That’s the legacy he has left with us. I wouldn’t allow this company to do anything less than that and I certainly wouldn’t allow Tony to do that either.”

Peggy bit her tongue at his tirade, knowing all-too-well Howard was far from some sort of noble paragon who was above reproach. He’d run in the streets of the Lower East side with future gangsters and had never been above a bit of chicanery and backroom gentlemen’s agreements to get what he wanted done. “I seem to recall he had to answer before the United States Senate in 1946 for charges of weapons dealing with the Soviets who were at the time no longer our Allies.”

The fact that she could pull that fact out caught the other man by surprise. His glower deepened. “And Howard Stark was cleared of any wrongdoing in that matter. It was a misunderstanding, nothing more. Having known the man personally, I can assure you that he handled all his business with integrity. He learned his lesson after that.”

“You speak as if you two were close.” The petty part of her soul knew that this wasn’t a necessary line of questioning, but she didn’t care. It galled her unreasonably that this man would claim to know so much of a situation that occurred when he was likely little more than a small child, particularly when she had been in the center of all of it risking her own life and good name.

Stane knew none of that, however, instead he focused on her comment, his anger subsiding into grave fondness. “We were...well, as close as anyone could be with Howard. He wasn’t exactly the type who let anyone in easily, but I was one of the few he trusted enough to get in there. He was like family to me.”

“You had once owned your own company that he bought outright, correct?”

Stane hadn’t expected that and he blinked up at her, faintly impressed. “You have done your homework.”

“That’s what they pay me to do,” she replied simply. “He offered you a position at SI and a fair amount of stock on top of the price of your company.”

“Also a house in Ventura County on a property of my choosing. He knew I like to surf and paid for a spot with a private beach that had some of the nicest waves along the California coast.”

“That was kind of him.”

“That was Howard,” he shrugged. Having been on the receiving end of Howard’s generosity many times, including the account that paid for her outrageously expensive shoes she was wearing, Peggy wasn’t surprised. “If he liked you, he could be generous...very generous. It may sound shallow, but it was how Howard I think showed his affection and appreciation. He wasn’t exactly an outwardly affectionate man, but buying nice things was something he could do.”

“And he liked you?”

“Ehh, Howard and I thought a lot alike,” Stane replied, moving against restlessly. “Our stories weren’t so different. We both were smart, both had to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, both had difficult upbringings in our childhood, both went to prestigious technology schools. I used to joke that if I didn’t know better, Howard could very well be my father and not Tony’s. Certainly, he was the right age for it.”

The realization somewhat floored Peggy, if for nothing else because she wasn’t even used to the idea that Tony Stark was actually Howard’s son. Still, Stane wasn’t wrong, even a quick bit of simple math said he could have been Howard’s son had he had one when he was young. She highly doubted Howard had been that reckless, however...or at least sincerely hoped he hadn’t.

“Is that what Howard became for you, then, a father figure?” She might as well prod that angle and see where it got her. To her surprise, Stane chuckled at that idea.

“Howard...a father figure?” He chuffed, shaking his head and running long fingers across his smooth scalp. “Oh, I forget you couldn’t have known him. Howard wasn’t anyone’s father figure, least of all mine. Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a great man, but Howard was more of a brother to me than anything, a comrade in engineering, the guy I knew I could bounce ideas off of and who I knew I could bounce ideas off of and could get it. We were as close as brothers! But a father figure...he wasn’t even a good father to Tony!”

That comment struck oddly considering his early story regarding the younger Stark’s grief at his parents' loss. “I thought you said he was crushed at his death.”

“Oh, he was, but it was complicated. You know how it is. Howard was a great man, but if there was one fault I would say he had it was how he raised that boy. Not that it was easy, I get it. How do you raise a child who is a genius even smarter than you are when you are already a genius? I wouldn’t know where to start!”

That idea boggled even Peggy’s mind. She’d seen Howard’s formidable intellect in action, as well as his arrogance about it, and the notion that there was anyone who could outstrip him, let alone his own son, was a frightening prospect indeed. “I’m sure it was difficult.”

“Hell yeah, it was. Tony was running before he could walk, he was reading by the time he was two and putting together motherboards when he was little more than a toddler. Maria used to say that when she couldn’t find him in his room he was always in his father’s lab, tinkering. Kid was a natural, so of course Howard was over-the-moon that his son was going to take after him someday. He was always bragging about Tony’s latest and newest creations; a new computer program, a robot, rudiments of artificial intelligence. It was like he was grooming a miniature version of himself, All he ever saw were the bits that Howard could relate to. I asked him once if he did anything normal with his kid, you know, take him out to a ballgame, or go hiking, anything that wasn’t just seeing his kid as an extension of his own personal genius.”

That sadly did sound exactly like something the Howard she knew would have done as a father. She sighed in belated exasperation, saddened by the fact she wasn’t there to say anything to him about it. “That had to be hard for his son.”

“Not going to lie, it wasn’t easy, no. I suppose that’s how Tony and I got to be so close, I understood Howard, I got what it was like being a kid with a difficult to please father, so I sort of stepped in as an uncle and mediate between the two. I’ve been around him most of his life. I suppose that’s why all of this is so very hard now, knowing he’s out there, afraid he’s not alive or not whole. I’ve always looked after Tony, tried to keep an eye on him, even more so since Howard’s death. I promised I’d look after him and I failed.”

Peggy understood that sort of grief. “I don’t know if there was much of anything you could have done to stop this, Mr. Stane.”

“No?” He didn’t look as certain in the moment. “Maybe...maybe not. I mean, I was just talking to him right before it happened, just minutes before. Had he called a little later, had he been on the phone with me when it happened, we maybe could have traced his phone…”

That was new information to her. “You are saying you spoke to him before the attack on his detail?”

Stane paused, perhaps surprised she didn’t know that. “Yeah, he called me as soon as the demonstration was done and the deal closed. He usually did in situations like that, if nothing else to just celebrate and give me something to take to the board. I was in bed when he called, in fact, just settling in for the night. He was happy, proud of himself, cocky...the normal Tony. I don’t think he even saw what was coming.”

“Do you know who else was with him?”

Stane looked thoughtful. “I mean, there was General Curtis, I saw him back there, and I know I heard Broadwell on the other end of the line...and Rhodes, of course. He was always there with Tony. He would have been in the humvee too, if Tony hadn’t been an idiot. Maybe it was good he wasn’t.”

“Maybe,” Peggy agreed, considering they may never have known had Rhodes not blown the whistle. She filed away the small bit of news on Stane’s phone call as she made a show of looking at the slender watch on her wrist. “I’m really afraid I’ve taken too much of your time, Mr. Stane. I appreciate you not calling security on me.”

“Not at all,” his smile was broad and perhaps a bit admiring. “I have to say, I hadn’t expected SHIELD to just break into my office like I was some sort of third-world dictator, but I am impressed with how you got in to see me.”

“I want to find Mr. Stark as much as you do, and I’m not a woman who takes no for an answer.” She met his amusement frankly. “My goal is to find him soon, Mr. Stane, for everyone’s sake.”

“I pray that you do. God knows that the Defense Department has been worse than useless.” He rose as Peggy stood, towering slightly over her as he took her hand. “It’s been a pleasure being grilled by you Miss Carter.”

“Director,” she replied, finding herself suddenly irritated by the “miss” appellation he used on her their entire conversation, as if she were some sort of schoolgirl in the classroom. He paused in mild confusion and she found herself falling into a lifetime of British manners and civility. “You insisted on calling me ‘miss’ and I am merely pointing out that is erroneous. I am Director Carter.”

“Director?” He chuffed, a small huff as his expression, which had been so open moments before, narrowed to something more calculating. “I thought Colonel Fury was the current director.”

“You would be right,” she shrugged, a hard edge to her smile. “I answer to Colonel Fury and am a part of this investigation at his request. That said, I do appreciate your time, Mr. Stane.”

He was noting that, she saw, with that calculation that seemed to always be hiding just beneath his friendly surface. “It was a pleasure, Director Carter. Perhaps in future we will meet again at a SHIELD function. Stark Industries once had a close relationship with SHIELD, it would be nice to rekindle that once again.”

“I will mention it to Director Fury.” For all of his claims to a close relationship with Howard, Peggy didn’t believe he knew about Howard and SHIELD. “Should questions come up, might we reach out to you again?”

“Of course,” he assured her, walking her back to the open door of his office. “Anything I can do to get our boy back here safe and sound.”

“Of course,” she smiled back up at him as from down the small hallway she could hear the clipped, hard sound of a pair of women's high heels marching towards them. 

“You will let me know if you find something? Anything?”

“You will be one of the first calls we make,” she assured him pleasantly. “And feel free to reach out to us should you feel the need.”

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Stane,” Ms. Sprague, looking decidedly less cool and collected and more frazzled and angry stalked up to them, glaring daggers at Peggy as she came to a halt in front of them. “I had told the SHIELD agents that you weren’t to be disturbed.”

“That’s all right, Nicole, Director Carter and I had a pleasant and necessary chat,” he soothed his frazzled assistant, who only looked mollified insofar as she was certain her boss wasn’t going to fire her on the spot. Amusement flickered as he eyed Peggy ruefully. “It’s my fault, I kept putting them off and I should have known better than to cross an agency as powerful as SHIELD.” 

“Let’s hope in future we have an easier time communicating.” She smiled pleasantly. “Goodbye, Mr. Stane.”

“Goodbye, Director.”

As she turned on her heels to march back towards the reception area she could feel Stane’s eyes following her the whole way out. She had a feeling he was the type to start making calls on the strange, fancy phones they all had, trying to discover who this woman making demands of him was. She’d noted the name of “Pierce” when she walked into the room. She had no idea if it was the same mysterious fellow who now oversaw SHIELD or not, perhaps it was. If so, she wondered just how much the head of the World Security Council would tell his acquaintance about her and what she was up to.

In the cold, bright area up front Sharon and Cassie waited, looking smug and pleased all at once. Ms. Sprague looked as if she heartily wished the floor would open up beneath both of them and swallow them all. “If you all are done here,” she snapped, glancing pointedly towards the elevators.

“I do believe we are,” Peggy responded as graciously as her mother could have ever hoped for. “Thank you for your full cooperation, Ms. Sprague. Agent Carter, Agent Kam, let’s go.”

Sharon and Cassie fell into step beside her as they made for the elevator, Ms. Sprague’s angry glare stabbing at them the whole way to the elevators. It was only once they were inside that Cassie broke first into snickers, Sharon beside Peggy looking rather proud of herself.

“I swear we almost got her to cry,” Cassie laughed, excitement at her first real interrogation ever clearly making her giddy.

“Hmmm,” Peggy responded, wanting to wait till they at least got to their own vehicle before digging too deeply into it.

“I guess our ploy worked. You were down there with Stane for some time.”

“It did,” she replied as the elevator alighted in the lobby, depositing them into the bustle of people wandering in and out. They bypassed the receptionist and made for where they parked, Peggy waiting till they were well outside of the main building before divulging anything further. “Stane was worried we’d tied up his assistant somewhere.”

“Perhaps not tied up in the physical sense, though she was fit to be tied, certainly,” Sharon smirked. “She’s not a woman who is used to being questioned or undermined.”

“It’s her job to be the wall between everyone and Stane. I’m only sorry that you both made her job a bit harder today.” The poor woman had looked as if she might just burst into tears the moment they were gone. “Did you find out anything interesting?”

“I don’t think she knew anything about Stark’s disappearance directly, no, but it turns out she was a wealth of gossip,” Sharon offered, pulling the keys for the SUV out of her pocket.

“And what does the gossip channel have to say?” Sometimes it was useful, sometimes not, at least in Peggy’s experience.

“Most of them seem to think that Stark likely leaked it all himself,” Cassie replied, climbing into the back seat behind Peggy. “According to her Stark was known to brag and wasn’t always careful who he told things to, especially when...you know, preoccupied.”

Sharon slipped behind the wheel as Peggy slipped in beside her. “Sadly, I don’t think that tracks. Stark has more military secrets in his head than the US government has on file and for all his numerous hook ups he’s not really the type to spill state secrets as pillow talk, else there would have been a lot more of them on the loose.”

“But you got to admit, there could have been an offhand comment somewhere along the way, maybe to someone at the craps tables in Las Vegas, or to that reporter he spent the night with, something about having to go to Afghanistan.”

“Maybe, but even if he did what would it mean to any of them? He likely goes a lot of places.”

Peggy listened, ruminating over each strand of what they had gathered. Stane posited that Stark wasn’t there to sell weapons outright, but did seem to think there were backdoor channels getting in. They knew there were shipments being sent into Afghanistan that Stark knew about, or at least signed off on, ones that may or may not be accounted for by government purchases. Stane wasn’t sure that Stark was even alive, despite their being no indication he was dead, but he had been in communication with him just before the attack began.”

“I need to talk to Rhodes,” she murmured, glancing sideways at Sharon as she started the car. “And I need a crash course on just how satellite communication works.”

That caught her niece by surprise. “Like...how to build one?”

“More specifically how they are utilized in Afghanistan,” she replied as Sharon pulled into afternoon traffic. “It could be nothing.”

Cassie from behind Peggy’s head harumphed. “I have a feeling that if you are bringing it up it’s likely something.”

Peggy had a feeling that she was right.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy learns technology.

Much to Peggy’s relief satellites weren’t so complicated that her 1940s mind couldn’t comprehend them.

“The idea of a telecommunications satellite is pretty simple,” Agent Burk explained, a strange little man with glasses and a receding hairline and clearly a passion for these things. “Just like radios and television work by sending out signal waves to receivers, satellites do the same thing. Basically they are a relay for those waves.”

He was at her glass board, dry eraser in hand as he drew something that vaguely resembled a cupped flower with a stamen sticking out labeled A, then a matching on the other side labeled B and above and between them something that may have been a winged plunger. “So the idea is that a powerful signal is sent out via a ground station. It is shot up into the atmosphere, where the satellite is orbiting.”

He drew a dashed line up to the winged plunger - she supposed it was his idea of a satellite. “The satellite reads the data and then retransmits it down to another ground station so they get the signal wherever they are at.”

He drew another line to the flower labeled B. “The idea is that we can use the satellites to bounce signals from one place on earth to another.”

“So it’s like using mirrors to reflect light from one place to another?”

Agent Burk grinned at that. “Exactly! Trying to get a signal across the globe using terrestrial means requires a ton of relays and the hope and a prayer that nothing interferes between them. A satellite is easy, beam it up one place, beam it down another, no fuss, no muss, and because they have onboard computers to hold the data you can in theory tell a satellite to stream data whenever you want, wherever you want. This is part of how we have this global media market, media is shared, boosted, and broadcast all over the world all the time, all day.”

“You know, it wasn’t so very different back in my day,” Peggy sniffed, cheekily. “I could get radio signals from Europe on a clear night if the skies were right.”

That did make the other man grin. “I used to do that when I was a kid with my grandpa’s old ham radio. It’s how I got into this business, actually.”

“It’s nice to know for all that everything has changed, some things have stayed the same.” She eyed the diagram on the board, feeling somewhat more secure in her understanding of all of this. “So the cellular phones everyone has here, they work on a similar principle?”

“More or less, a little different, but yeah. Pretty much all data on the planet works under these principles, it’s either sent through ground based lines or shot up through satellites, but it’s always a combination of the two.”

“So, if Tony Stark wanted to make a call to someone in the US from Afghanistan…”

“That would have had to go through a satellite for sure. Afghanistan, especially where he went missing, doesn’t have a strong telecommunications network, no towers. Knowing Stark and his sort of crazy, he likely is able to directly uplink his phone into one of his company's satellites, probably one that is dedicated specifically for his personal use. My guess is that he interfaces it with his artificial intelligence program he has running his stuff. He’s famous for having developed it.”

Even that idea made Peggy’s brain hurt. “Do we know which satellite is his specifically?”

Burk capped the dry erase pen as he ruminated thoughtfully. “We would know most of them, yeah, he has a lot of them. The UN requires that all member nations keep a registry of anything they launch into space, mostly so they can make sure no one nation puts something into the sky that will nuke another nation, so the US keeps a list of everything that gets shot up into space for anyone, even Stark Industries. But, the truth of the matter is that if Stark wanted to he could sneak something up there under the guise of something else if he wanted something more private or off the grid, in which case it won’t be on any registry.”

“How would we find it?”

“Tracking signals back and forth mostly. If he used his phone on his private network to call someone who has a phone via an outside carrier we could backtrack it from the receiving end.”

“Perhaps a call to Obadiah Stane?”

Burk shrugged, nodding. “Sure, but that’s if Stane isn’t on the private system too. I’d guarantee that he was, being COO of Stark Industries. You’d have better luck with someone like Stark's assistants or others he is in contact with, chances are higher they use commercial carriers.”

“Right,” she sighed, realizing they may have followed this to its logical end. “We’d have to know who Stark was calling the last few weeks before he disappeared and I don’t think that short of getting the US federal government involved we will be getting that information.”

“It’s easier to get since 9/11, but yeah, SHIELD is still not the US government and we’d have to play nice to get it.”

Peggy nodded, studying the crude diagram on the board. “In theory, if we do find it, could we then track his cell phone signal to find him.”

Burk seemed pleased she had sussed this piece out for herself. “Sure, if his cell phone was still even working after the attack. Honestly, there is no guarantee it was. If it was as destroyed as I’m hearing it was, then it could be toast and that’s not going to get you anywhere.”

“Right,” she sighed, realizing that her brilliant idea wasn’t so brilliant as she thought it was. “Well, it’s a better shot than I’ve had in weeks and I must thank you for that, Agent Burk.”

“Pleasures all mine, Director Carter.” He shook her hand with a bit of a bashful grin. “You know, the grandpa who taught me how to use that radio, he served in the 107th. He knew the Howling Commandos. Was buddies with Jim Morita. They stayed in touch after the war.”

That fact gave Peggy pause as she found her first real smile of the day. “Really! Did you ever meet him?”

“Once at some get together in the 80s. It was crazy to hear those stories. I was a nerdy little kid who was too in awe of them all to really make an impression, but I think of them a lot. I wonder what he’d have to say about half of this.”

Peggy wondered that herself. “Knowing Jim he’d take it all in stride.”

“Yeah,” he grinned, softly. “Anyway, if you have any further questions, let me know, I’m happy to help.”

“Thank you.” She waited till he was out of the door before sitting back down to stare at the board quietly, wondering. They knew Stark had made a call to Stane sometime right before the attack. What they didn’t know was if he made any other communications or to whom. Perhaps his assistant? From what Sharon said he relied on her to even manage his life, an idea that Peggy might have found abhorrent if it weren’t for seeing how Mr. Jarvis and Howard operated. Was there anyone on any of Cassie’s lists that perhaps would have been in conversation with him?

“If you keep staring at the board like that your eyes are going to cross.” Sharon leaned on the doorway, a plastic bag slung over her wrist and two bottles of water in hand. Peggy smiled at her as she waved her in, happily taking the water as Sharon settled herself and a bag of delicious smelling food onto the desk between them.

“Sorry, was just...thinking.”

“I could tell,” she teased, pulling out cartons to set in between them. “You had that look Grandpa sometimes got when he was working on the _New York Times_ crossword section.”

Peggy only chuckled, glancing again at the board. “I thought I had something there...maybe I didn’t.”

“Tracing Stark’s phone,” Sharon asked, opening the containers carefully. The food smelled savory and pungent and it caught Peggy’s attention finally as her stomach rumbled.

“That was the idea, anyway. You know we could do phone tracing back in my day, right?”

“I didn’t say a thing,” Sharon shot back, though perhaps a hint of a guilty flush colored her cheeks. “Anyway, take a break, eat some food. Mom always said it was the best way to brainstorm”

“I appreciate your mother’s way of thinking.” She eyed the paper containers with curiosity. “What culinary oddity have you brought for me today?”

“You say that as if it is a bad thing!” Sharon handed her a plastic fork but chose for herself a pair of pale, thin wooden sticks. “I brought you Thai food. Don’t worry, it’s nothing spicy. I figure a good old fashioned pad thai and some spring rolls would be safe enough for you.”

“Thai?” She tried to correlate the name with the shifts and changes on the global map that she had been learning. “Thailand, used to be Siam until the war.”

“And it’s immigrants brought one of my favorite drunk foods ever,” Sharon sighed, wistfully, digging into something that smelled suspiciously like a curry. “The amount of this I lived on in college is obscene.”

Peggy could admit she’d never had it herself. She gingerly prodded the container of what looked to be long, thin noodles with some sort of sauce on top before twirling a bit on the plastic tines. Until she had stepped into this century she’d never considered herself picky or skittish about food, but then again, American food in the 1940s wasn’t terribly different than food you could get anywhere in Europe and with a war going on and rations, any food was better than no food. But by comparison to the panoply available to her now, the food of her youth now looked basic and bland. Peggy was just British enough to admit that some things made her nervous to put in her mouth. Still, as she tasted the noodles with their sweet and savory flavor, she discovered it wasn’t all that bad.

“That’s...surprisingly good.”

“Did you think it wouldn’t be?” Sharon laughed at her over her own dish of reddish, thin curry over a bed of rice.

“I don’t know! Remember I was raised on basic, English fair and then survived on rations and more potatoes than I thought were possible. Until you’ve had to eat US Army K-rations and drink Timothy Dugan’s coffee, you can’t possibly know what the hell of war is like.”

“Thank god for that, I might have starved.” Sharon spoke with the utter assurance of someone who had never had to know a day of hunger in her life. “I only ever heard the old guys talk about how much better things were back then. To hear my mother’s father, Papa Georgie, carry on about the pie back in the day, you’d have thought we had forgotten the art of it somehow.”

“Well, I don’t know if it was organic pie made from specially grown wheat and locally sourced fruit and butter, so perhaps it can’t compare.”

“Which reminds me, while I’m in town we need to do dinner with Juan and Julio sometime. I loved that restaurant.

Peggy only chuckled, digging into the noodles more. “There was a restaurant I used to practically live at when I first moved to the city permanently, an automat called L&L, not far from downtown. It was a nice place, mostly basic fair, but the pie was outstanding. I would go in to grab a slice and a cup and coffee and chat with Angie…”

As her friend’s name fell from her lips it occurred to Peggy it had been weeks since she had even thought about her. Frankly, it had been that long since she thought about Daniel, or Edwin and Ana, really, all save Howard who now had become the central focus in the drama of his now missing son. Friends who had been dear to her just months ago now were forgotten as she struggled through the new world she wandered into, lost as she tried to figure out how to manage cell phones and computers, looking at Fury’s database, and understanding how satellites worked. It hit her then, with a finality that she hadn’t felt even as she looked Scott Lang in the eye, that her friends were gone and would be forever.

“Peggy?”

She blinked at the worry in her niece’s voice, realizing that Sharon had been speaking to her and she hadn’t been listening. “I’m sorry...what?”

Sharon eyed her with quiet concern. “You had been talking about pie and someone named Angie and then you spaced out.”

“Angie...right...yes.” She cleared her throat, prodding the noodles before her gently, her appetite suddenly somewhat gone. “I’d go and grab a piece of pie because sugar had been so limited back home that it was a treat to have it in America, so it was sort of a special reward at the end of the day. And Angie...she’d been my roommate for a time there when I worked at the SSR, she and I would talk about our days, her annoying customers, my annoying co-workers, her failed auditions, and...she was a friend. I think my first real female friend I ever had as an adult. I’d been around the Army and the boys for so long, and the few women I did know, we weren’t close. But Angie was different...just a sweet, kind soul. I didn’t tell her goodbye either, just a note, like everyone else, that I was out on a mission and may never come back.”

She wondered, vaguely, if this was how Tony Stark was feeling wherever he was, wishing he had thought to call one more person before his entire world was bombed into oblivion.

Sharon, sensing her mood, pushed her own food aside for a moment. “She sounds like she was a very good friend.”

“One of the best,” Peggy confirmed, chuckling as random memories surfaced. “She started chatting me up because I came in one day over lunch, looking down. She always had that habit, talking to customers who were in a bad mood. She’d comp a coffee or a pie and just give an ear to listen. When I had a spot of trouble with the SSR after one of Howard’s escapades, she didn’t think twice about giving me a hand hiding from them, even when it got us both tossed out of our lodging on our ears. She was from the Bronx, a huge Italian family, and every so often she’d drag me up for dinners with them. Her mother would make this pasta that was to die for and always insisted on sending some home with us because she was convinced we were too skinny and not eating enough, which wasn’t untrue as I couldn’t and still can’t cook. And all she ever wanted to be was an actress! She tried...heavens she tried, I think for everything, radio, stage, you name it, and she couldn’t get anyone to look at her twice. I finally begged Howard to give her something. He owned a film company after all, the least he could do to pay her back after dragging her into his arms dealing fiasco was to give her a role in something. She didn’t take it at first, Angie had her heart set on Broadway, but eventually I persuaded her to give it a shot. She’d just left a few months before...well all of his happened. The last I heard from her was a Christmas card, saying she was homesick and that the beaches in Los Angeles were lovely, but she missed it being cold for the holiday.”

Peggy never knew if she got a role with the studio or not.

“Anyway, another casualty of my decisions, I suppose.” Peggy stabbed the noodles viciously, perhaps more so than was needed. Scallions and some sort of long, thin, white crispy vegetable scattered on her desk in its wake. “I have that habit, you see, throwing myself into something and sucking in people I care for, often to their detriment.”

Sharon was polite enough to leave her to sulk for a moment as she stirred at her lunch carefully. They ate in silence for several moments, Peggy’s thoughts dark, on Ana, on Angie, on Daniel who had made such a show of kneeling on his one good leg and been so dear about it, considering how her own impetuousness and insistence on living her life on her own terms had its consequences. She’d had that argument with Mr. Jarvis while stuck in the desert, not long before all hell broke loose again. Some days she wondered if she hadn’t been right, she was better off alone. But...for all that she carried on about that like some melodramatic schoolgirl, she did seem to have the habit of picking up new friends left and right. Sharon for example was one example, Cassie working somewhere downstairs was another. Out a few blocks from there was Juan Machado who had messaged her for brunch over the weekend with Julio. It seemed she was always destined to draw people into her orbit.

“You know,” Sharon finally sighed around a bite of her curry. “The one thing that I always remember hearing about you growing up was just how compassionate you are, how determined you are to ensure people are cared for and safe. That sort of person attracts friends. It just so happens you like saving the world, and that gets dicey at the best of times, but if there is one thing that I’ve learned about saving the world is that no hero can do it by themselves, whether it’s thanks to a friend who serves them coffee of a day or a niece who is kind enough to temporarily transfer to a new city and buys them pad thai for lunch. No one can go about this alone, not even when they think they can - especially when they think they should.”

Mr. Jarvis had told her something similar once. “If I had any doubt you were my niece, which I didn’t, I think that right there dispelled it.”

Sharon grinned. “Well, now I'm on a mission for the best pie in New York. I wonder if Juan has any recommendations.”

“I’m sure he does, something made with the magic fairy dust of pampered and massaged cows or something.” She was laughing at the very notion when the phone on her desk sounded, catching them both. Out of habit she reached for it, all business in an instant. “Carter?”

“Director Carter,” the young woman she had met the very first time she had dragged into the SHIELD offices months ago was on the other end of the line. “There is a Colonel James Rhodes here to see you. He says he doesn’t have an appointment, but you two have been in communication.”

“Yes,” she smiled, glancing to the mess on her desk. “Send him on up, would you?”

“Of course, Director.”

Peggy hung up, reaching for napkins to wipe up the worst of it. “Rhodes is here to see me.”

Sharon arched an eyebrow, but began gathering cartons to close up neatly. “I hadn’t heard he was state side.”

“I hadn’t either.” Peggy tossed the crumpled mess. “Let’s see what he has to say about all of this.”

“I doubt it’s anything good,” Sharon snorted, carrying out the evidence of their lunch.

Considering it was he who had reached out to SHIELD in the first place, Peggy highly doubted it was anything good either. Minutes later, there was a knock on her open door, a man she could only presume was James Rhodes standing stiff and tall in a blue military uniform. The Air Force uniform, if she recalled, they’d since broken off from the Army with their more drab colors. Older than her, but still youthful enough to be out in the field, it was comforting to see someone with a military background for a change. She smiled as she beckoned him in, rounding her desk to make introductions. “You must be the Colonel.”

He took her hand firmly. “Director Carter, I presume.”

“At your service.” She pointed him to the chair Sharon had vacated earlier. “Have a seat. I’m glad you could swing by to see me.”

“Was in DC, ma’am, so it wasn’t so out of my way.” He smiled affably despite his severe demeanor. “My apologies, I’ve been mostly on the West Coast and overseas trying to coordinate efforts.”

“If it wasn’t for you, we’d not be manning this search to begin with.” She leaned back in her chair as she considered where to start. “Why did it take the Defense Department so long to admit Stark was gone?”

Irritation flickered in Rhodes expression, schooled behind military calm. “When we came up on the sight of the attack and didn’t find Tony the first thought was that he’d been taken. The protocol was then to keep silent about it till we had more information, let them come to us or let us find out where he is. The minute we make an announcement and the press gets involved is the minute we have every reporter and freelancer who thinks they know the Afghan mountains better than we do in the middle of a situation that might blow up in a lot of faces. It’s better to control the situation if we have the upper hand in it.”

“Understandable, Colonel, but it was weeks before anything was said by anyone.”

Another glimmer showed under the facade. “Yeah, well by that point it was out of my hands. Command in the region took control and shut me out of it, despite my many requests through the chain of command. I turned to you guys because after a month with no word and Pepper calling me nearly every hour of everyday waiting for word, something had to be said. Mind you, no one on my end knows I did that, it just so happens that an ex-CO of mine happens to have served with Colonel Fury back in the day.”

“Duly noted,” Peggy assured him with a hint of a smile, remembering well her own escapades with stepping outside of the military chain of command. “That’s a lot of trust to put into an outside agency.”

Rhodes shrugged. “Honestly, we all know you are where 90% of our intelligence comes from. If anyone has any information on the area, it would be SHIELD.”

He was smart. Peggy liked him immediately. “We do have operatives on the ground looking. Have you heard of the Ten Rings?”

“Somewhat, yeah, an insurgent group like any other.”

“We think that’s who has Stark.”

Rhodes took in the information with an equanimity she didn’t think he felt under the surface. “Any idea as to why?”

“It’s hard to say. It could be as simple as they found out a wealthy American industrialist was in the area and they thought they could take him and trade him for something valuable or make a political deal.”

“If that were the case they would have reached out and said something by now. We’ve not heard a word out of them, so I don’t think they want a trade.”

“You’re right,” she replied. “Which makes me believe they want him for something else. He was in the area demonstrating a new weapons system, correct?”

“Yeah, the Jericho, could blow the hell out of a whole mountain range.” His gaze turned shrewd as he studied Peggy. “You don’t think they want that out of him?”

“Who was the primary engineer on it?”

“He was, something that insane could only come out of Tony’s brain,” Rhodes replied, wheels spinning. “And if he is the primary architect they could take him and have him recreate it for them.”

Peggy let the penny drop quietly as Rhodes shifted in his seat. His sharp eyes turned to her, half in alarm, half in denial. “Tony would never do it, not in a million years.”

“He may have no choice.”

“You don’t know Tony Stark,” he replied firmly, shaking his head. “He’s never done anything he doesn’t want to do, not even when bribbed. I saw him walk away from a multi-billion dollar weapons deal because a senator wanted to subcontract to a manufacturer in his state and Tony said no. He doesn’t just give in to demands.”

“It is one thing when you are safe and free in your own home country where you are protected by law and a large bank account, Colonel, it’s different when you are a prisoner in someone else’s domain.”

Doubt rose for just a second before Rhodes quashed it. “Not Tony.”

Peggy was sure Rhodes was more right than wrong, but she felt she had to float the possibility out there. “Where you part of the plans to do the demonstration in Afghanistan?”

“Yes, ma’am. I thought it was dangerous, but like I said, Tony is stubborn. He had been working on this system for a while, it was his baby. He wanted to demonstrate it to the military and the board.”

“Was it his idea to try it out in Afghanistan?”

“Not originally, no. He wanted to do something in California or Nevada, out in the desert and away from a populated area. None of his technology uses anything radioactive, so there isn’t a chance of fall out, but people still are nervous when you are blowing up mountain faces in their neighborhood. The governors of both states declined, so Obadiah suggested Afghanistan. It’s where our military operations are being directed right now and they would be the ones most eager to see it and try it out.”

“And they decided to override your concerns?”

She thought she could see the other man just swallow an eye roll. “Like I said about Tony, when he gets something into his head, he runs with it and you can’t convince him otherwise. Of course I told him it was a bad idea but he did it anyway. It took him two months to plan it, and by that I mean Pepper and me.”

“And you were the only two who knew the plans?”

“No, there was of course the DOD, the commander of operational forces in Afghanistan, the head of security, a host of soldiers pulled into the detail. It wasn’t precisely a presidential visit, so they didn’t keep it as tightly under wraps.”

“So any one of them could have tipped off someone?”

Rhodes shifted uncomfortably. “Could have, but unlikely. Honestly, we’ve spent weeks questioning everyone and no one has found anything, and that’s not including the normal information sources we’ve tapped into to find anything, and I mean anything, on Tony’s whereabouts. If someone knows, they aren’t talking, because we’ve looked everywhere.”

“And nothing on the Ten Rings?”

Rhodes shook his head. “That’s the thing there, groups like that, they are like gangs here. Sure they terrorize the populace, but they do it because they have lots of big guns and weapons and no one is willing to cross that. Even if they do know, and some might, no one is talking.”

And therein lay the problem. “Do you know if Mr. Stark has his own private network he communicates on?”

Her question came out of nowhere for Rhodes who blinked in mild surprise at it. “His own network?”

Peggy pointed to Agent Burk’s diagram on her glass board. “His own network.”

He hit on instantly why she asked. “You are trying to track Tony's phone.”

“The hope is it will provide some data for his location. If he has his own network, then it would only be his signal we would be looking for, correct?”

“Yeah, and you aren’t wrong, though I’m a bit surprised you all figured it out. Tony doesn’t advertise that.”

“I must admit I didn’t figure it out, but someone else here did. So he does have a satellite he uses that is private?”

“It’s part of existing satellites used for Stark Industries, but yeah, he does it so he doesn’t have to compete for bandwidth. Means he gets signal just about anywhere.” Excitement underscored his words as he sat up straight, considering. “We never found his phone in the debris. If it’s still live then it would still be pinging off the network, but it’s private and his lawyers will never give us access in a million years...but Pepper would.”

Spoken like a man who was willing to do whatever it took to get things done. “His last phone call that we know of was to Obadiah Stane right before the attack. It means that at least he was connected to the signal at some point while in the country. Perhaps it is a means by which to find him.”

The colonel’s relief was palpable, the stiffness of his carriage relaxing slightly as a hint of a smile pulled up on his face. “We could actually find him.”

It was clear that whatever his duty in working with Stark, the man considered him a friend. “You are close to him.”

“Yeah,” he chuffed, both in affection and exasperation. “I’ve known Tony since he was a kid, I mean a real kid. We were at MIT together. I tried to keep him out of trouble with varying degrees of success, considering it is Tony. After he took over at Stark Industries, my hire ups decided to capitalize on our friendship and connection and assigned me to be his handler on military matters, which was good, because I don’t think there is anyone else in the US military who is crazy enough to try and handle Tony Stark.”

For Peggy, who had done much the same thing with his father, she understood Rhodes' position far too well. She found herself grinning at him, more than sympathetic to the other man’s plight. “It either means you are insane or endlessly patient, but whatever the case you strike me as a loyal and true friend.”

His affection turned into appreciation for her sentiment. “Well, he doesn’t make it easy, but yeah. Honestly, Tony makes a career out of poor life choices, and he’d have been flat on his ass - pardon the expression - if it weren’t for people who have his back. Me, Pepper, Rhodey, Obi...these are who have kept Tony together for years. What my worst fear, my biggest fear is, is that when we do find him he will either be so broken he won’t ever be himself ever again or worse, that he’s beyond all hope and we lost him. And I don’t know how I feel about that.”

“We’ll find him,” she assured him with a confidence she had no right in giving him, but felt nonetheless. After all, she had come into this future with the determination to save the world, and Tony Stark was supposed to be a part of that future. She had no idea what they would do if no sooner than she arrived one of the key pieces of this plan - these Avengers - was removed before she even had an opportunity to do...well, whatever it was she was supposed to do.

Still, it was at least comfort to Rhodes, who sighed in deep relief. “You know, I take my oath I swore, the command I answer to, all very seriously, but...I am not going to lie, I’m so glad right now that I went around them to you.”

“If they found out, would it make it hard for you?”

“Only if we find him dead,” he replied, pointedly. “If we find him alive, then they get all the credit and glory.”

“Does it matter then?”

“No, it doesn’t, but just so you know, I wasn’t here and we never spoke.”

“Of course not, Colonel Rhodes. Will you speak to Miss Potts about access to that satellite?”

“I’ll have her talk with your people. Anyone in particular?”

Peggy glanced at the diagram again. “Agent Burk, I think. He will be able to parse it out far better than I can. We will reach out to you with further information when we get it. Are you going back to Afghanistan?”

“Edwards first, then back out there, yeah.” It was clear the mileage on him was wearing. “Anything you have to share with me, here’s my direct contact.”

He passed a card over with a personal number and what she now recognized was an email addressed hand written in tight, cramped writing at the bottom. She took it and set it by her phone. “We’ll contact you as soon as we hear something.”

“I appreciate it.” He rose, shaking Peggy’s hand as he did. “Listen, that SHIELD stepped up...it means a lot. I’ve never known where to fall down on you all, if you were useful or not, but in this instance, I’m glad I did.”

“Thank you for your vote of confidence.” James Rhodes struck her as an impossibly good man dragged into the insanity of his friend’s life. It was only later, after she had seen him out, as she sat at her desk studying his card that she thought of Angie again, and how she’d been dragged into Peggy’s insanity. It was never easy being the friend of someone like that. She studied Rhodes’ card, heart heavy, as she realized how much she missed the steadfast, practical, patient kindness of her friend. Had she, like Rhodes, waited in the hope that someone would bring word of her return? Had she mourned the loss and moved on? Had she even remembered her mad friend from New York who was always in more trouble than ever seemed wise?

It all left Peggy longing for a piece of pie and a coffee and a willing ear to pour her troubles in.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy contemplates uncomfortable situations.

Romanoff and Barton returned from abroad a week later, travel worn and filled with information.

“The Ten Rings isn’t some random group of upjumped shepherds and angry teenagers,” Barton grumbled, leaning back in one of Coulson’s chairs, tanned from the sun and somewhat scruffy from Peggy’s perspective, but newly showered and dressed on his end of the teleconferencing camera. “It’s more of a terrorist collective, like some sort of weird group of assholes who all have beef with someone and network together to reign havoc on whoever they are picking on at the moment. Right now, it’s central Asia.”

Romanoff seemed less enthusiastic about her partner’s assessment. “From what my contacts have got, it seems much more like a network of mercenaries for hire, ex-soldiers looking for work, disaffected youths looking for training, they’re not particular who they work for as long as they paid or get experience, often both. Their very diversity means they don’t hold to any one particular cause, so it’s less a jyhadist training school and more soldiers-of-fortune working for a warlord.”

“We did find out more about the guy they are working for, though.” Barton tapped the glass top of Coulson’s desk. On their shared screen a grainy photograph of a bald-headed man in fatigues and some sort of goggles appeared, too blurry for fine details, but enough to get a general idea. “His name is Raza, seems to be a local militant leader who got sick of the Taliban’s shit and decided to carve out a kingdom for himself. He has tapped into this Ten Rings network in order to do that, bringing in professionals from all over the world. They’ve been playing a slow game of attrition with local other warlords along the mountains north and west of Kandahar, picking them off one-by-one and taking all the spoils. The going is slow for them, though, the area is mountainous and dry, his forces are mostly mercenaries for hire so they don’t know the region or speak most of the dialects, and there are as many new groups popping up there as there are people who gets guns. It’s like the Wild West, frankly, but Raza has the backing, money, and ruthlessness to actually pull it off.”

“Who is backing him?”

Romanoff provided the answer to that question. “That is more shady. There are all sorts of interests throwing money into these sorts of places, sometimes because they want to have one side or the other win a civil war, sometimes it’s just to cause mayhem in order to provide justification for an outside force to come in and hold it down. Frankly, my guess is it is the later, given the Western presence in the reason. Someone wants to play up that there is chaos in the back country and the West is needed there, but who that is, hard to say. That would take a lot more digging around, and likely not in the foothills of the Hindu Kush.”

Peggy, who had been listening from her office in New York along with Sharon, studied the grainy picture of this Raza. “Do we know where is located at?”

“No,” Barton replied quickly. “I was down deep with everyone there I could get to talk to me. He’s somewhere in the western range, but outside of that it’s a mystery. My guess is that he likely has a base deep in a cave somewhere hidden and mostly operates from outlying bases scattered on the edges of the range further out, that way no one can follow their movements. Wherever that base is at, though, my guess is that’s where Stark is at as well.”

“No word on him,” Coulson queeried in a tone that said he doubted that there was.

“Not that anyone was talking about,” Barton replied ruefully. “I think it was a B&E, they grabbed and ran. I don’t think anyone even knew that it happened. Most of the guys I talked to didn’t seem to know anything about it.”

“I didn’t get much more with my sources either,” Romanoff added. “Like I told you, there are known shipments of Stark weapons in the area, but how they got there, who knows. The thing I did hear with any consistency is that there is a lot of money being thrown around to ensure that people like Raza get what they need, which means there is a market for it. Someone is supplying it to them, someone who is profiting off of the sale of those arms to the Ten Rings.”

“And you think it’s Stark,” Peggy challenged again.

Romanoff shrugged. “He is the one who profits the most from a conflict. The more wars there are, the more people want to buy his goods, the more race cars he can buy.”

“And it couldn’t possibly be one of these shadowy types you mentioned, the ones who are pushing this conflict.”

“It could be,” Romanoff admitted without so much as a flicker of doubt, a cynical acceptance that any and all people could be responsible. “Certainly, Stark isn’t the only one. The CIA could be the one pulling the strings here, it would be far from the first time they have ever done that, it could be the KGB, it could be Middle Eastern oil interests, it could be Iran, it could be all of the above all at the same time. None of that finds Stark, however, but it’s all avenues to bring up to him once he does get back. Why did he go to Afghanistan and what was he up to? Isn’t that what you built SHIELD for, to be the group that ensured that people like the Starks don’t get to foment private war in order to push their personal interest?”

Romanoff’s question glided off her tongue as sweet and non-aggressive as could be, but even Sharon beside Peggy gasped. Barton on the other end of the line whipped his head around to stare at her in shock. As for Peggy, she quietly ground her teeth, biting off the retort she would have given, stunned that Romanoff had said it and confused as to what reason she could have possibly given the woman to dislike her.

Blessedly, Coulson stepped in, carefully and expertly cutting through the tension. “We will handle the extra piece with Stark when we find him. Director Carter, how is that going on your end.”

Peggy took a steady breath, slapping on a smile despite the sting of Romanoff’s words. “Rhodes was able to get us access to the Stark Industries satellite networks, at least temporarily. We have Agent Burk and his team reviewing the data, our hope is that they start picking up something soon. Stark’s phone wasn’t found on the scene, perhaps it could be a clue, perhaps not. With Barton’s information, however, it may help us cut down on the swath of territory we are looking in.”

“I’ll send what I got over to Burk, see if it helps,” Barton offered with a smile, still cutting a sideways glance to his imperturbable partner.

Coulson seemed satisfied with that. “If you get something, will you let Rhodes know?”

“I promised him he would be the first person I contact,” Peggy assured him. “Is there anything else?”

Coulson glanced at Romanoff but shook his head. “Not for now. We’ll keep each other posted.”

“A pleasure as always, Agent Coulson.” She pushed the various buttons that turned off the screen, waiting till it faded to black before she exhaled deeply into the silence.

“What did you do to get on Romanoff’s bad side?” Sharon stared at her in utter shock.

“I think the fact that I exist, maybe? I don’t know, I’ve hardly said two words to the woman when we weren’t in a meeting together.” Peggy didn’t deny it bothered her more than a little. It was far from the first time she’d had to deal with hostility in the work place, but at least with Jack Thompson and his ilk she understood the dislike no matter how juvenile and childish it was. Romanoff had no reason to hate her that she knew of and yet she seemed to go out of her way to make it clear that she did or at the very least that she didn’t trust her.

Sharon frowned in worry. “No offense, but Romanoff isn’t someone I would want angry at me.”

“You don’t believe she would do anything foolish?” Peggy couldn’t believe anyone Fury trusted would go that far.

“No, she wouldn’t, but if she felt you were a threat…”

“To what? I arrived here months ago with just the clothes off my back and nothing else. I’ve done nothing to warrant suspicion outside of being a dead woman who happened to reappear.”

“I don’t know,” Sharon shrugged, gathering her things. “But speaking of coming back from the dead...so Easter is this weekend.”

Peggy paused, surprised by that. “Is it really?”

“Yeah, I know. You’ve been here about four months.”

That hardly seemed possible, that only four months had transpired in her life. It felt like a million years. She did suppose it was at least sixty. “Time has flown.”

“In more ways than one. Anyway, I’m catching a flight down to DC tonight, I promised Mom I’d be there to spend the holiday with everyone. We aren’t precisely religious, but any excuse to get everyone together, Mom uses it. If you might be interested…”

Peggy froze. “You meant to see your family for the holiday.”

Sharon shuffled nervously, her laptop and things in hand. “I mean, they're your family, too.”

Peggy realized her faux paux and flushed, uncharacteristically feeling herself trip all over her own words. “Yes, they are, it’s just...do they even know about me, yet.”

Sharon shuffled even more. “I mean, I mentioned that I had big news to share.”

“Big news could mean anything from you getting a promotion to you being engaged, not that a long lost aunt has appeared from the dead.”

“I know, I just...thought it would be nice to have you all connect, finally, so I don’t have to sidestep the issue of who I am staying with while working on a case up here.”

“What have you been telling them on that score?”

“That you are a college friend who is letting me crash while I’m on assignment.” Sharon shrugged in mild disgust at herself. “In fairness, I just don’t know what to tell them about all this.”

“I am not denying it is difficult, but I don’t know how I feel just showing up on their doorstep when they feel I’m dead. Perhaps...perhaps after you talk together, then maybe we can arrange something later.”

It didn’t make her niece happy, but it was a compromise. “I don’t like the idea of you here by yourself spending a holiday all alone.”

Peggy chuckled, thinking of the many such days she’d been by herself. “It’s not the first one nor the last. I’ve been living on my own since I was nineteen, there were more than a few holidays and birthdays on my own.”

“Oh, wait, and isn’t your birthday coming up?”

Peggy was frankly surprised she knew that. “As a matter of fact, yes.”

“So we are planning on doing something for that, right?” Already Easter was forgotten in favor of a new plan.

“I usually ignore it, but if you would like.”

“Your first birthday in a new century, we should do something. How old will you be anyway?”

“The math on that makes my head hurt.” Peggy really had no way of even beginning to figure it all out. “Biologically, I would be turning 28, I suppose. In actuality, I’m 89, if one goes by my birthdate.”

Sharon shook her head, smiling. “You look damn good for 89 years. You must tell me your skin care regimen.”

Peggy snorted. “I wasn’t sure I’d live to either age, frankly.”

Sharon stared at her in utter wonder, something of that familiar look of awe that seemed to be on the faces of so many people she ran across in this place whenever Peggy came across them. “You aren’t much older than I am and you’ve lived more in a lifetime than I could ever hope to.”

“Different times, a different world. We fought a war so you could be my age and not have those experiences in your life. Believe me, you wouldn’t want them.”

“That’s what Grandpa used to say.” She expression grew sad and reflective. “He said he saw things...and did things...thing he couldn’t take back and would never forget. Perhaps, in the end, his memory, the dementia...maybe it was for the best.”

Michael had always had an extraordinary mind, for as far back as Peggy could remember her elder brother. Their father had always hoped for Michael to follow in his footsteps in the law, his memory was that good, his arguments that sound, his logic that quick, but Michael had always craved to do something more and meaningful. That the mind that had been his gift in life would have failed him made Peggy unfathomably sad. Still, perhaps in the end it was for the best. She knew of some of what lurked there. She knew what lurked in her own memory. Perhaps there was a kindness in that, even though she knew it had to be painful for Sharon and her family to watch.

“War is dirty business,” she finally sighed, shrugging. “No one wins in it, no matter what they say. There’s no glory in it, no triumph, and when it’s all done you are left having to put the pieces back together and nothing will ever be the same. Your grandfather and I found that out, I think most of the men and women who served did. I remember the end of the war in Europe mostly as just being relieved it was over and that we hadn’t died.”

That made her niece grow quiet. Peggy felt guilty for doing it. They had been having a lighthearted conversation about her birthday and she had to turn it into sadness. “My apologies, I’ve gone and made it all depressing. If you want to do something for my birthday, that would be lovely. Dinner? I’ve yet to try half of the new food in this mad world.”

“We could invite people. It will be nice!” Sharon's smile returned a bit at that. “I know...I know that this is crazy, don’t get me wrong, I’m still trying to wrap my head around this. I know it has to be hard knowing that everyone you cared for is gone now and that you have to pick up and make new friends, a new life. But you’ve been here three months and you have friends, family, people who can make this life pretty good too. And I’m not saying you can’t or shouldn’t mourn the ones you had before, I think you should, else it lessens them, but...I am saying you could build something good here too, with us.”

Peggy thought of her offer, of the huge clan of Carters in Virginia who she could be spending an Easter weekend with. “I will, Sharon, I promise, just one step at a time.”

“Okay,” she wrapped her arms more tightly around her things. “And I will tell them about you and we will feel out the waters.”

“That will be good. Maybe the next holiday, should we find Stark by then, we can plan something.”

Sharon nodded, pleased by this compromise. “I hope we find Stark by then. You do know that every day he’s gone, the chances of us finding him alive and whole drop drastically.”

“I know.” That was a statistic that Peggy knew well enough from her time in the war. “Perhaps, combining Burk’s work and the intel from Romanoff and Barton, we will be able to pinpoint something.”

“Do you think that Stark has been doing shady deals on the side.”

Peggy didn’t want to believe so. “As you said, Tony isn’t Howard’s son. I don’t know him. I would hope that Howard would instill in him the values not to, but...if Romanoff’s right, then perhaps he was and that is what all of this is about.”

“Or it could be someone in the company banking off of Stark’s own negligence and tendency to not micromanage his company using it to make money off of it as well. If that’s the case, he could simply be caught up in all of that, a victim of circumstance.”

“Then I suppose I should suggest to Coulson that Romanoff go start looking into some of those pits she wasn’t willing to dig deep down in.” Coulson she was sure would agree to it, Romanoff...less so. “Have a good trip. Enjoy the holiday.”

“Try to do something fun.”

“I can make no promises,” Peggy smiled, waving her off. “Let me know when you get there safely.”

“Of course. Let me know what you turn up over the weekend.”

“I will.”

As Peggy watched her niece leave she couldn’t help but remember Michael that fateful night long ago, her engagement party, and the awful row they had. Even all these years later she still seemed to muck it all up with the lot of them. What could she tell her brother’s children. How could she explain?

She really was good at getting herself into fine messes.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy celebrates her birthday.

“No way you are twenty-eight!” Juan’s disbelief rang through the restaurant, a high end one according to Peggy’s understanding, though to her eyes it merely looked like someone had put tables and chairs in an unfinished, red-brick room and called it an eatery. Still, from the way that Juan and Julio carried on, it apparently was one of the best restaurants to ever have been invented, using science to recreate simple dishes in new and creative ways. Peggy thought longingly of Angie, the diner, and the cherry pie there, but agreed to the scheme they had concocted with Sharon to celebrate her birthday. The question was if they actually served any real food or was it simply the sort of mad concoction that Howard's engineers would have brewed up?

But more at hand was Juan’s question, which had Peggy blushing as she nodded, sipping from her a cocktail that was delicious and curiously non-cocktail like. “I am exactly twenty-eight today.”

“Girl, you have the best skin. I bet you are going to look amazing forever.” He shook his head looking to Julio. “Why can’t any of my girls look this good?”

Julio, who had clearly heard some of this rant before, benevolently rolled his eyes. “Because they don’t bother with their skin regime?”

“No they don’t, no matter how many times I tell them that theater will kill your face, do they listen? I had one of the ladies coming in for a replacement costume and I swear she slept in her make up for the night before. I almost sent her to the restroom with the extra bottle I keep in my kit to wash it off, but you know, there are only so many battles you can fight in a day and that wasn’t one of them.”

“See what I have to put up with,” Julio shared a grin with them both.

“You know you love me for it!” Juan leaned up to peck his cheek, as unapologetic in his open displays of affection as he was about everything else. “Anyway, enough about my work and the horror stories of the theater backstage, what’s up with you ladies in the world of espionage.”

“The world hasn’t burned yet,” Sharon offered, a careful dodge of the truth. She knew Juan, ever curious, was digging.

“But not for lack of trying,” Peggy followed up from the depths of her cocktail glass. It had been a long two weeks with not a lot to show for it, and that was just on their end of the Tony Stark investigation. Elsewhere in the world, other problems brewed.

Julio, as practical and pragmatic as his partner was not, laughed in knowing commiseration. “I know, right? The growing unrest in Afghanistan has locals here worried. I had calls all day into the office of groups, mostly refugee advocates, begging to get time with the mayor and discuss the situation. I suppose they are hoping he can use whatever clout he has to try and push through efforts to recognize them as political exiles, which right now I don’t know how well that will go over.”

All Peggy zeroed in on in the sentence was the words “Afghanistan” and “refugee”. “They are that worried about the situation?”

“Warlords doing whatever they want, running parts of the country with an iron fist and completely outside the boundaries of any internationally recognized government, so yeah, lots of people are worried about families left back there, or villages, places they grew up. It’s sad, not going to lie, but the mayor's office isn’t where you start with that sort of thing.”

“Seriously, though, it’s scary over there.” Juan whistled before sipping from his own frothy, magical concoction. “Mmm, you know that’s where Tony Stark got kidnapped! Can you believe that?”

“We know,” Sharon sighed, glancing sideways at Peggy. “There are people all over looking for him.”

“Really? They find anything?”

“Not yet,” Sharon muttered into her drink. Peggy stayed tactfully silent. In her few months of acquaintance with Juan she had discovered he was someone who loved gossip and knew when to give him something and when not to. He was a dear soul, no doubt, but a chatterbox in a way Julio beside him was not.

“It’s so sad, don’t you think?” Juan stirred his drink idly. “I mean, he was just there and some warlord has him in some cave somewhere. I would be terrified! “

“I can’t figure out what he was doing over there,” Julio shook his head. “Seriously, it’s bad enough he’s tearing up half of Queens, now he’s flying to war zones too?”

“Tearing up half of Queens?” Peggy hadn’t caught on to what he meant by that.

Julio rolled his eyes. “The Stark Expo he’s been building. Started it two years ago, made this big announcement it was back! I guess his father used to put on these big World’s Fair like events back in the day. He’s updated it to be half fair and half Ted Talk, displaying technology and serving funnel cakes, I guess. Like the world’s biggest tech convention except more of a pain in the ass.”

“We got tickets already,” Juan grinned, giddily. “Through his office.”

“I can see you are really torn up about going,” Sharon chuckled.

“Well, free tickets are free tickets,” Julio shrugged, grinning easily. “No, he’s been giving hell to the permits office, or at least his team is. There for a while they were calling in every other week for something new or crazy they needed permits for because their boss had an idea. Stark is of the opinion if you throw enough money at something it will solve the problem.”

Juan frowned in thought. “Was it Martha or Theresa who bitched about how if his lawyers called one more time she’d shove her shoe up his ass?” 

“Theresa, and she went to Catholic school, she learned how to fight from nuns. I wouldn’t cross her.”

Their shared laughter subsides as the waiter presented them with their ordered dishes, most of which Peggy wasn’t as sure were food. This idea of “molecular gastronomy” sounded liked something that would feature at a Stark Expo, breaking food down to its particles and essence. She had eyed both Sharon and Juan with doubt when they had suggested the place for her birthday. Now she eyed a plate of dark colored pasta topped with a froth called “lemon air” and glanced warily at her friends. “This looks like a bird’s nest someone pulled from a tree.”

“It’s pasta in cream sauce with lemon zest,” Juan chided, pushing a plate towards her of rolled up pieces of thinly sliced ham covered in small balls of something orange. “This is like nothing you’ve ever tasted before.”

Hesitantly, Peggy poked at one with a fork. “You do know I’m British, right? We aren’t known for our food culture.”

“Close your eyes and think of the queen,” Juan deadpanned, causing Julio beside him to choke on what Peggy thought was a vegetable puree.

Ignoring the urge to kick him, she daintly picked up a rolled slice between her manicured nails and placed it in her mouth. Immediately, the tiny balls burst into some sort of pure melon flavor, like distilled melons, mixing sweetly with the salty ham, the flavors bursting in her mouth. It was like nothing Peggy, with her war rations and beans-on-toast sort of pallet, had ever experienced.

“Oh my god,” she breathed, holding a hand to her mouth, eyes wide.

“See why I brought you here,” Sharon laughed, nudging her.

“When she said you had never tried anything, I knew we had to do it. Papi knows the owner and got us in.”

Peggy thought she could kiss Julio just for that. “This is insane.”

He blushed, shrugging. “Well, you proved me wrong, you weren’t another crazy cat Nito dragged in after all.”

“Give me some credit,” Juan muttered, disgruntled.

Thus was the tenor of their conversation, warm and convivial, with the occasional back and forth between the couple across the table. Peggy found herself content and happy with wine and conversation and it only occurred to her after the waiter brought them a complimentary bowl of ice cream and sherbert, of course all done in this magical, scientific way, that it was perhaps the best, happiest birthday she’d had in years. Probably since the war...since Steve.

“Thank you all for the lovely evening,” she heard herself saying as Julio and Sharon had some sort of secret war over the check far from Peggy’s prying eyes.

“Girl, it was nothing. You are good people and we need to stick together. Everyone needs friends and support around them. That’s how we get by in the world.”

Another moment of nostalgia. Edwin had said the very same thing once. She’d brushed him off then, not understanding how right he was. How she missed him. He’d have been fascinated with this place. Magic balls of melon juice, froth clouds of lemon air, Edwin would have been in his element...well, perhaps not with the decor, she was sure that would have scandalized him.

Would she ever stop missing any of them?

“Well, now what, ladies,” Julio asked solicitously, wrapping an arm around Juan. “Somewhere else for drinks? Coffee maybe?”

“Oh, no, I’ll be up all night,” Sharon shook her head just as their purses both buzzed. “Uh oh!”

Peggy was already into her bag, a practical one that held everything but the kitchen sink made by a designer Sharon liked by the name of Spade. The phone inside was glowing and Peggy turned it inside the purse to see a message from the number she knew SHIELD used for such communications. It simply read “We got a hit.”

“We have to go,” Peggy ordered quietly, before remembering herself and looking to the other two apologetically. “I’m so sorry, you were so lovely for my birthday! It’s just...work.”

“No, we get it, go save the world!” Juan would likely be forever delighted at the work they did, whatever he imagined it to be. He rose as she did, arms wide as he hugged her, a gesture that was still strange to Peggy, unused to such displays of open affection, but she was learning was the way he shared his care with his friends. “Happy birthday, girl, go out there and kick ass.”

“Of course,” she laughed, before returning Julio’s more reserved embrace. “We’ll get together for drinks perhaps later this week.”

“We should have you over the house, come to one of our dinner parties. You are part of the group now.”

“This coming from the man who was convinced you were a cracked out druggie five months ago,” Juan rolled his eyes, laughing.

“Everyone can change their mind,” Julio shrugged, before hugging Sharon and waving them off. “Be safe.”

“Always,” Sharon called as they made it out of the restaurant and to the street already looking for a cab to hail. “Not the way I wanted to end your birthday.”

“Not the first birthday to end that way and I’m certain it won’t be the last.” Peggy was already dialing on her phone, pleased she could get that far with the technology on her own. She wasn’t surprised when it was Burk who answered. “You got something.”

“You in a secure place?”

“Not yet, but I’m with Sharon and we are on our way.” She nodded to Sharon who had managed to flag down a cab.

“Good, because I think we found him and not in the way you would have suspected.”

“We will be there soon.” Peggy clicked off, climbing inside after Sharon who eyed her curiously. “We may have found him.”

“About time,” she muttered as she rattled off the address to SHIELD headquarters to the driver.

Fifteen minutes later they were in the office, both in their evening dress, Sharon in a soft floaty skirt and halter top that would never have passed for fine dining in Peggy’s youth, while Peggy had gone more conservatively in a green wrap dress that was nothing like the severe suits she preferred for the office. Both of their outfits caused Agent Burk to stare at them speculatively.

“You look nice. I didn’t break up a party, did I?”

“As a matter of fact, you did, but that’s all right,” Sharon teased, nodding to Peggy. “It’s her birthday.”

“Really? So how old are you really?”

“A lady never tells, Agent Burk, you said you got something?”

“Happy birthday to you, Director, I think we might have pinpointed Stark.” Burk began pulling up photos on the large screens in the command center he was centered in, other technicians working around him. “I’ve been pouring through the Stark communications satellite data that Pepper Potts let me have access to. Turns out it was like we suspected, each of the satellites had a part only Stark used for his private network. Only a handful of people have that link up, so once I picked out which one it was I started looking through the data. Stark’s phone sent a message right before he was captured. After that it pinged once, ten miles to the north and east and then nothing else. Either it was too damaged or they found it on him and destroyed it, probably the latter.”

“So how did you find him.”

“I went through all the other data on the network from that region over the next few weeks, and there was quite a lot. Someone was using the network, all encrypted, and all to one location deep in the mountains north of Kandahar via another encrypted satellite link.”

Sharon frowned, tucking a curl of hair behind an ear as she studied Burk’s data. “Someone at Stark Industries was communicating with someone in those mountains.”

Burk nodded knowingly. “You said it yourself, Carter, someone in Stark Industries has been selling arms to these guys. What if they are someone in Stark Industries, someone who got access to this network, either by hacking or by some other means, and they have been using it all this time to coordinate weapons runs to known terrorists, disguising it in a private signal, knowing no one would go looking for it there. More than that, even if they did, they’d assume Stark would be in on it and he would be the fall guy for it if it came to that.”

The pieces started falling into place. “You said that they have been in continued communication with someone there, even after Stark disappeared?”

“Yeah,” Burk brought up a screen of information, Peggy assumed connections and dates. “Lots of chatter, but we’ve not deciphered it yet. The encryption is pretty thick on all of it, we’ll be a while digging through it. Whoever they are, they knew what they were doing. My guess is that they, or a group of theys, have been the real culprits behind the scenes at Stark Industries, coordinating with these groups regarding weapons shipments and passing along information to them on where to conveniently pick them up. They likely got spooked that someone found out and told Stark and arranged to have him kidnapped to get him out of the way.”

“Why not kill him, then? Sharon, like Peggy, felt something was wrong with that. “That would be the smarter plan.”

“Who knows,” Burk shrugged. “Maybe the terrorist changed the plan. He’s more valuable alive than dead, you got to admit. But that’s not the most interesting part of all of this, no sooner had me and the team pinpointed the signal and sent a satellite to check it out than there were these interesting images that we took.”

On the screen, grainy black and white photos of a mountainous area, perhaps a canyon, covered in boxes and trucks finally emerged. Just as the picture started to resolve itself, the entire scene began to explode, plumes of smoke rising as one after another bright flashes began to mushroom to life. After several moments of that, the chaos seemed to subside, but the area was left in ruin, destruction covering the everything.

“What happened,” Peggy asked, confused by what she saw.

“Explosions, but we think that it was a weapons stockpile. The images we got of the area before everything went to hell seemed to indicate there were all sorts of weapons there, but a lot of Stark Tech. Most all of it is now gone...on purpose.”

Something like hope leapt into Peggy’s heart as she glanced towards Sharon. “By Stark?”

“Funny thing, that. Right as this explosion started going off, there was a projectile that was thrown through the air and landed miles away in the deserts beyond the mountain. When we went to go trace it, there was shrapnel everywhere, but a closer look had a line of footprints walking out into the desert.” He had a photo pulled up of a small crater of sand and broken metal and a trail leading off into the desert, a lone figure wandering away from it.

“That’s him,” Peggy breathed, despite the blur of the picture. “It’s got to be, no one else would be insane enough to build something to propel him that far and blow up all that weaponry.”

“Do we get a hold of Rhodes?” Sharon didn’t look as certain as she studied the image.

“What can it hurt? It’s the first lead we’ve had and he’s in Afghanistan now. He can pull the military resources there to get them out there.” Peggy glance to Burk. “Can you get him called in?”

“I can get him via video if he is near a camera. All I have to do is patch in to the UN Command in Afghanistan.”

The wonders of modern technology would never cease to amaze Peggy. “Get him on the line, then. He’s been waiting for word for long enough.”

It took some twenty minutes of calls back and forth through several different commands before they hit up on Rhodes. He was indeed somewhere that had video capabilities, hopeful perhaps for the first time since January when it all happened. “Do you have something?”

Peggy nodded. “Agent Burk is sending coordinates now. If it’s him, he’s alive out there and he’s escaped.”

The grin that broke across Rhodes’ face could have lit up New York. “Son-of-a-bitch, I knew it. If he was alive, he’d find a way out of it. Is he all right, is he healthy?”

“No way of knowing, all we got are satellite images,” Burk offered, stepping into frame. “We’ll send them over to you as well as the location of the camp he just vacated. I’ll be honest, though, I don’t think they’ll be there when you find it.”

“Probably not, but if we find Tony that will make my lifetime. I can’t believe that you all did it.”

“Thank Agent Burk, Colonel, we’d not have found him if not for him.” Peggy was well aware who did the hard work in this situation.

“I’ll thank all of you when I get a chance.”

“How about you go find your friend, Colonel, and get him home as soon as possible, preferably in one piece.”

“I’ll do my best. When can I expect those coordinates?”

“Any moment,” Burk was glancing to his team as they were sending data.

“You’ll send us an update,” Peggy asked.

“As soon as we have him in hand,” Rhodes replied, already checking with his team to see that it came through. “I think I know where you all are talking about. We can get there in two hours, tops.”

“Remember he’s on the move, he might be hard to spot,” Burk warned. “But he will be in that general vicinity.”

“We’ll find him. We got this far.” He looked into the camera once more. “Director, thank you.”

“It was the least I could do,” she replied quietly. “I owed it to an old friend to see him safe.”

Rhodes didn’t know the particulars, but nodded. “I’ll be in touch.”

He signed out and Peggy let out a sigh of relief.

“I can’t believe we found him,” Sharon murmured, clearly pleased and stunned.

“It took work, but we got it.” Burk looked to them both. “I have to say, that was one of the more challenging cases I had in a while. Not to make light of another’s misfortune, but it was fun to pick it apart.”

“I thank you for your work, Agent Burk.” She considered what he had mentioned about his own history with the Howling Commandos. “I think Morita would have been proud of that bit of quick thinking.”

“You had the idea,” he insisted, though clearly pleased at the comparison. “Now if Rhodes can find him, he’ll be home safe and sound and we can put this to rest.”

“Not quite,” Sharon replied, nodding to the data still up on the large, glass screens. “You said it yourself, someone in SI is selling weapons to terrorists and was conspiring to remove Stark from the equation. Someone is up to shady shenanigans and we don’t know who yet.”

“I can keep having my teams work on the data if you like.” He looked to Peggy for confirmation. She considered, knowing Coulson was probably going to ask the same thing once she filled him in on the details.

“Do it, if nothing else because we want to keep an eye on if the shipments continue in the future. Also, if they are still at Stark Industries they may try something even more outlandish next time. If blowing him up in Afghanistan didn’t kill him, something else might, and if they get desperate we have no way of knowing what they will resort to this time.”

“Got it,” Burke agreed, clearly disturbed by that notion. “I can see what we can do. In the meantime, someone might want to consider saying something to Stark Industries.”

“Or at the very least having someone check into their records more thoroughly than I could,” Sharon sighed. “I went in as a SHIELD agent. They weren’t going to show me anything suspicious and even if I caught something I couldn't dig into it without a warrant, something the US government would be loath to give me as a SHIELD operative.”

That was a dilemma, but one Peggy was well used to circumventing. “A good thing SHIELD works in espionage and not policing, now isn’t it?”

The light clicked for them both at Peggy’s slow smile. Burk nodded, impressed. Sharon grinned, liking the idea. 

“Who did you have in mind,” she asked, curious. “Not me?”

“No, they know your face, now.”

She frowned. “Not you?”

“Oh, certainly not. All I need is one of them to have been digging through Howard’s files and recognize me, or worse, me being so idiotic to new technology I give myself away. No, we need someone who can blend in anywhere and is so skilled at it no one would think to question it.”

It hit Sharon like a lightning bolt, her eyes widening as it occurred to her who Peggy meant. “She’s going to hate it.”

“I’ll ask Coulson nicely.”

“She already doesn’t like you.”

“So, she will be angry with me some more. Is there anyone else you want to poach for this?”

Burk was clearly left out of the loop on this and blinked between them. “Who are you thinking of sending in?”

Peggy smiled wickedly. “Natasha Romanoff is not my biggest fan in the world.”

“The Black Widow? You are sending her in to spy on Stark Industries?” Burk rubbed a hand across his bald head. “I mean, you know she can kill a man with a shoestring and a paperclip.”

“And she’s also highly skilled in blending into her surroundings. I think it will be good for her.”

Sharon didn’t look as if she thought so, but held her hands up as if to leave it to Peggy to decide. “You have the conversation with Coulson. If he agrees, sure. I’m just saying, it is a bit beneath her pay grade.”

“Then I won’t go to Coulson,” Peggy replied. “This is a matter of international security. If someone is selling weapons to enemies and hiding it under the table and trying to kill off the head of the company to cover it up, then we need to find out why. We use the assets we have.”

“All very true,” Sharon agreed. “I’m just stating the obvious.”

“Duly noted,” Peggy replied, glancing at the time on the screens around them. “It is still early enough I could go for a drink, and I think something a bit stronger than whatever that was we had with dinner. A celebration is in order. Would you care to join us, Agent Burk, considering you did the work?”

He looked shocked she even asked. “I...well thank you, Director, but...my team did the hard work. Besides, it’s late and my wife is likely wondering if I died here.”

Peggy chuckled, realizing she hadn’t known Burk had a wife. Why not, clearly many agents had lives outside of SHIELD. It had been slightly different in her day, men often put in long hours and thought little of wives and girlfriends back home in the suburbs. She put a good face on it, however, glossing over it. “Well, then, perhaps I can reward them all with drinks later in the week.”

“Great! I’ll keep in communication with Rhodes and keep you posted.”

“Thank you.” With that, Peggy made her way out of the command center, already jubilantly digging her phone out of her bag. Sharon behind her patted her on the shoulder.

“Good job, Director. You found Tony Stark.”

“We did, you mean. If it wasn’t for you, Cassie, and Burk back there, not to mention Romanoff, Barton and Coulson, we’d never have found him.”

“True,” Sharon conceded. “You calling Coulson?”

“I am, I want him to hear the good news.”

“And about Romanoff?”

Peggy shrugged as the phone began to ring through. “And perhaps help strategize how to go about breaking the bad news.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy and Coulson swap favors.

Tony Stark’s rescue was about as climatic as his disappearance had not been. The breaking news tore across the media with a speed that left Peggy’s head dizzy as the US military were hailed for their perseverance in finding him. Coulson watched the headlines with a bland eye as he sat on a corner of his desk at the Triskelion, thoroughly unimpressed. “Not that an organization like SHIELD needs press, but a thank you would be nice.”

“I think a deeper probe into why the US military dropped the ball would be nice, but we can’t all have what we want.” Peggy had flown down that morning as the news broke, a file of Agent Burk’s findings in hand. “How long till he’s on American soil?”

“Rhodes said that they are flying him to Okinawa to receive medical treatment, nothing major, just weight loss and dehydration, some muscle strain from the crash landing he took in the desert. Once he’s cleared to fly there is a military transport slated to take him to Edwards Air Force base. His assistant has already arranged for him to go home straight from there.”

That he seemed relatively unscathed from his trauma was a shock to even Peggy, who had stayed relatively optimistic. “Has he explained yet how it was he got out of there?”

“Not yet, or at least not that Rhodes is admitting.” Coulson reviewed the file Peggy brought with her and the pictures Agent Burk had captured. “It looks like he jury rigged some sort of escape pod or suit.”

“Howard had experimented with rocket packs and the like during the war. Perhaps he remembered that and used something like it to at least get himself out of the situation when the time presented itself. Three months in, chances are high his captors were likely getting lax in their attention to him.”

“Possibly,” Coulson murmured, setting the photos aside. “He’s damn lucky he’s alive is what I’m saying. The more information we get on the Ten Rings, the more I’m shocked he isn’t dead.”

“Have Barton and Romanoff found out more?”

“They seem to have a reputation for not particularly caring who gets killed in their long range efforts. The entire region by the Hindu Kush has been caught in the crossfire of their back and forth between them and other tribal warlords. Entire villages and towns have been reduced to rubble if not wiped out. The town of Gulmira has been one of the worst hit, it had been a small but relatively thriving population, a center for the local tribes, most of whom raise sheep for wool production overseas. Towns like that have been targeted because it destabilizes the local power base and makes it easier for these warlords, like Raza, to take control.”

“And of course it all takes weapons, ones that someone at Stark Industries has been supplying.” Peggy pulled out the report in the file for Coulson, complete with Agent Burk’s assessment. “Someone’s been in communication with this Raza, or at least someone in his camp, and they were using Stark’s private network to do it.”

That caught Coulson’s attention. “Do we know who?”

“Not yet, Agent Burk is breaking that down. They encrypted their files and it will take some time to break in there.”

“Perhaps someone who wanted Stark out of the way to cover up their tracks.”

“Or someone who wanted him to take the fall for it should it all come to light. It’s hard to defend your name if you are captured or dead.”

“Whatever the case, some of these transmissions were just days ago, which means that they are still at Stark Industries. Do they know anything yet?”

“Not yet,” she replied, thinking she should at least strategically drop her idea. “I have a plan if you are willing to consider it.”

That she was wanting to run it by him seemed to both catch him off guard and please him. “What is it?”

“I’ve sent Sharon in there once. They know SHIELD is looking and they are likely hiding whatever they got in there to ensure we don’t see it, which means we need to send someone else in who isn’t advertising themself as an agent of SHIELD.”

It clicked with Coulson immediately who she meant. “You want to send Romanoff.”

“She’s far more adaptable to this environment than Barton is.”

Coulson snorted, nodding and shrugging. “Fair, I don’t know if Barton even knows how to type. It’s not her favorite, but I think she will go for it if I ask her nicely.”

That had been much less confrontational than expected. “Which is why I came to you. She doesn’t seem to want to have much to do with me.”

Only the faintest grimace flickered across Coulson’s otherwise pleasant expression. “I did warn you Natasha is a bit standoffish.”

“A bit?”

“A lot,” he sighed, picking up the files.

“She seems to get along with Sharon just fine, and from what I hear there are others she has no problem with.”

Coulson didn’t seem to have a clear reason why. “It could be...well, you did appear out of thin air. Honestly, time travel, it is a bit to take.”

“I am not denying that, but everyone else seems to just shrug it off as if it was a Sunday walk in the park.”

“Yes...I guess there has been so many crazy incidents that it’s a bit sort of par for the course for us.”

“Such as what? Aliens?”

That hadn’t been what he expected to hear. He actually paused in a step as he rounded his desk before turning to her. “How did you know about that?”

She wanted to tell him Fury had mentioned it, but decided to play nice. “Scott Lang mentioned it before we swanned off.”

“Did he?” He looked troubled by that. “As I said, there are much stranger things with SHIELD than just time travel, and knowing Howard Stark’s penchant for strange inventions, for all anyone knew he could have cooked it all up. I guess it’s not as hard for the average person at SHIELD to believe is what I’m saying.”

“But not Romanoff?”

“Natasha is far from average,” Coulson smiled briefly. “I think, though, if you want to get to the bottom of it you might want to reach out to her yourself. She doesn’t bite.”

“That’s not what I saw,” Peggy muttered but realized he was right. “In any case, having her on the inside, we can perhaps turn up who it is trying to deal under the table with the Ten Rings.”

“I don’t disagree, though I think we also need to have a talk with Stark about his experience and what he knows about any of this. If he’s innocent of arms dealing under the table we can can remove him from all suspicion and move on. If he isn’t, then we know how to direct Romanoff in her search.”

As much as she didn’t think that Tony had anything to do with any of this, Coulson was right. They needed to know that with certainty before they could completely remove suspicion. “Do you want to talk to him when he gets back here?”

“I want us to talk to him,” Coulson amended, much to Peggy’s surprise.

“Us?” Why did it bother her, the idea of seeing Howard’s son? “You are a more than capable agent, Coulson, you don’t need me tagging around.”

“No, but it never hurts to have an extra pair of eyes and ears to pay attention.”

She temporized. “Now that he is back I had hoped to focus my attention back on the case Fury had me on when this all blew up.”

“I’m not saying you can’t, I’m just asking if you wouldn’t consider coming along.”

It hit her why he was asking. “You don’t want to have to deal with Stark.”

He shrugged, unashamed by that. “Let’s just say I know my limitations. I heard how you got around Stane’s secretary to get to him, a clever move if I must say.”

“Hardly that, I did the same thing to generals and more than one senator during and after the war. Honestly, getting around the guard dogs is the easy part.”

“Think you could get around Pepper Potts?”

Peggy now saw the method to Coulson’s madness. “I don’t know the woman, but I maybe could.”

“She will be your biggest obstacle getting to Stark...though, in all honesty he might just...well…” He looked her up and down apologetically, his expression a comical twist of embarrassment and practicality. “I hate to put it this way, Director Carter, but you are an attractive woman and he likes those a great deal.”

She snorted, knowing poor Coulson was right and yet feeling mildly disturbed by it. “Technically, I’m old enough to be his grandmother.”

“Technically doesn’t count for a lot in this situation. I am just saying, he might be more amenable to you.”

“I’m not seducing Howard’s son! That’s just...incestuous!”

Even Coulson could laugh at that. “I got to admit, it’s perhaps my last resort. Who knows, after what he’s been through, he may not care. But you do have a way to get to him that I don’t.”

He was right. Stark had surrounded himself with those he trusted most, people who would protect him at all costs, doubly so now after his experience. Coulson was an amazing agent, with a keen investigative mind and more than a bit of willingness to bend the rules to make things happen, and she liked that a great deal about him. He would have been exactly the type of agent she’d have recruited in her day, diligent, compassionate, and an out of the box thinker, but she doubted he had ever had to get around the aide-de-camp of a general as persistent as a bulldog and built like a brick house.

“Fine,” she agreed. “So when do you want to meet with him?”

“I’m hoping to catch him right when he returns, perhaps set up an appointment with Potts and at least see what she may know. If nothing else, perhaps you can get in to see him while I’m doing that.”

It wasn’t much of a plan, but she could perhaps improvise. “So we are going to Los Angeles?”

“As soon as we get word he’s heading back to the states. The quinjet will beat any military flight in and we can perhaps catch him at his home in Malibu.”

“You want to ambush him at home after he just got back from being held for three months?”

“If we don’t, then he’s going to evade us and we’ll never get through.”

Peggy wasn’t sure if that was the best course of action but she also knew well that Coulson had a point, Stark’s knew how to hide when they didn’t want the limelight. “We’ll see how successful you are at catching your quarry.”

“All I need is to talk to him, that’s it. And besides, why do you think I am bringing you along, he may be less rude to you.”

Peggy rolled her eyes at that. “I doubt that, he will likely be just as rude, I just have a better tolerance for it.”

“I didn’t say it was perfect, only that it was the situation at hand.”

“True,” she replied, catching out of the corner of her eye Sharon waving to get her attention. “Excuse me for a moment.”

Sharon met her with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I know you were in with Coulson, but I wanted to let you know that since the case with Stark is pretty much wrapped up, my supervisor has asked that I come back on duty.”

Peggy didn’t know why it should give her pause, but it did. Ignoring a trill of brief panic she pasted on what she hoped was an understanding smile. “Of course! I mean, you have your own work. I’m just glad they agreed to let me borrow you.”

“And hey, we got to hang out more, got to know one another!” Wistfulness and worry underscored her words. “I’m going to really miss your fabulous apartment.”

“It’s there for you to come up any time. I need to learn more about these modern movies you keep wanting to introduce me to.”

“True, we hadn’t really gotten into the spy thriller genre yet. I needed your expert opinion.”

“I’m sure that most of it is too fantastical to be real anyway, most of them are.”

None of Peggy’s bravado seemed to fool her niece. “Listen, you got Cassie up there, and Juan and Julio, you aren’t by yourself. And I’m not far away, we can still hang out. And now that I’ve broken the insanity of your existence to my family...you should maybe come down for Memorial Day, come see them. You know, Dad couldn’t believe it, I think...I think it would be more real if you did come and meet with them.”

Peggy wasn’t sure she was ready for that. “Let’s see what a month brings. Right now, it looks as if I’m headed to Los Angeles to help Coulson hogtie Tony Stark into speaking to us.”

That earned a surprised look from Sharon. “The man just barely survived being captured and tortured by terrorists and we are already going to give him the third degree?”

“Yes, well, in fairness it is always best to speak with a witness as close to an event as possible, and besides, we all know that he will likely not want to talk about it the further out he is from it. Best to get it done so he can move on and heal than to keep belaboring the point.”

“If you say so.”

“We’ll see. I’m not making promises any of this will work, mind you, but if Stark Industries is selling weapons to known terrorists, it’s important to know if he knew, and if not what he found out while being kept.”

“And you don’t think the US military isn’t asking that same thing of him right now?”

Now it was Peggy’s turn for incredulity. “Three months since he went missing and it took us to find him? They are dealing with a man who everyone swears is a genius and you don’t think at his worst he couldn’t run circles around them if he didn’t want to deal with them, which if I were him at the moment, I wouldn’t.”

“Point,” Sharon replied, shaking her head. “This world is run by some truly, startling incompetant people.”

“It’s a good thing it has some of us here to try and keep it straight, isn’t it?” Peggy sighed, feeling melancholy at the thought of not having Sharon about even as a friend and confidant. It felt not terribly unlike when Michael left to go to university so long ago, only to sign up for the army and never fully come home. A bit of her life, of someone who understood her and who she was, disappeared and left her behind.

“Hey, you’re here for at least the night, right? Come crash at my place. I can show you around the DC I know, show you how it’s changed...mostly how it hasn’t changed. You still have quite a lot of this modern world you need to learn about.”

“There are still Republicans and Democrats in this town, correct?” Peggy at least could find within her a little bit of tongue-in-cheek.

“Unfortunately, yes, and sometimes they even get things done. Not often, but on occasion.”

“I’m glad then that some things in this world have remained the same,” Peggy mused as she returned to Coulson’s office, finding herself weirdly comforted by as absurd a fact as that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my original Chapter 5 of this story, I had Daniel Sousa having passed in the 1980s, however, the show "Agents of SHIELD" has mixed things up a bit. I admit that time has not allowed me to watch the show but I was so thrilled with their plot, I have changed that for this story as you will see in the next chapter, and have also amended Chapter 5. Please indulge the author in a slight deviation in the story.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy returns to Los Angeles.

If Peggy could take comfort in small aspects of the world remaining the same, then the massive change of other parts of it still left her reeling when she stopped to think about it.

“It’s gotten so...big!”

Coulson’s chuckle beside her told Peggy he’d expected that response and perhaps was waiting for it. “Well, it has been nearly sixty years since you were last here.”

“But still!” From high above the city of Los Angeles, Peggy could see the full sprawl of it over hills and canyons, the wide, silver ribbons of giant roadways snaking through the jumble of houses, shopping areas, and streets that connected the whole mess like a patchwork blanket. When last she had been there - just the summer before in her own personal timeline - Los Angeles had been a big city, perhaps not as large as New York, but certainly not small. Now, it looked like it had spread over every available surface, skirting the green topped mountains and fanning out towards the ocean, dotted here and there by skylines of towers of glass, little crowns rising above all the rest of humanity.

“This used to be the land of movie stars and orange groves,” she murmured, her face practically pressed against the glass. “It was the glamorous place to go if you wanted to see or be seen and hope you got an autograph from someone famous.”

“It still is, though perhaps the fame isn’t quite as glittery as it used to be. Now at days everyone wants to be a YouTube star.”

“Is that the ridiculous video service Sharon keeps sending me videos from.”

“That would be it, yeah. Doesn’t quite have the glamor of Cary Grant or Rita Hayworth, though.”

“No,” she smiled, appreciating the familiar references. “I remember Mr. Jarvis loved it out here, all save for Howard’s flamingo, Bernard.” Oh, how he had been vexed by the damned bird, she recalled with a sad pang. He had hated it with the special passion she didn’t think Edwin Jarvis was ever capable of, turning the creature into his personal nemesis. “Is Howard’s mansion still here?”

“No, I believe it got purchased and torn down at some point, used for high end apartments. Space is at a premium, if you couldn’t tell.”

“It wasn’t a nice home, honestly. Some movie star had built it as a recreation of a Spanish colonial stye and it was ugly and hard to secure, but he loved playing at being the movie executive there. Whatever happened to his film studio?”

“Sold that too, from what I understand, shortly after he sold the house. Did you actually ever see any of Howard Stark’s films?”

“On purpose?” Peggy grinned mischeviously at Coulson. “I did watch a few to please him and not hurt his feelings. I suppose the Malibu property you mentioned is the one he purchased while he was out here.”

“Yeah, he had some famous architect build him a house on the side of a cliff, it’s quite spectacular. I’ve seen pictures of it...taken from far away...usually from surveillance footage or tabloids.”

Peggy laughed, shaking her head. “Howard did like to make a splash and always loved anything new and trendy. I’m surprised Tony makes it his home.”

“Believe me, if I inherited that house, I’d not want to give it up myself.” The quinjet they were passengers in had moved towards the spires at the center of the spread of the city, where several of the massive roadways converged. It was only when Peggy saw the obelisk-like building that was the Los Angeles City Hall in her day that she realized they were even in downtown.

“They’ve built all of these tall buildings.” She blinked at the tallest one, that looked as if it had a crown on its top, as high as any of the buildings New York had.

“Most cities do now, even London.”

“London with a skyscraper?” That caught her short. Her last memories of her childhood home were of a city still desperately trying to recover from a war that had ravaged it just scant years before. There were still bombed out husks of buildings, piles of rubble where old Victorian row houses once had been, children climbing over the ruins of factories now turned into playgrounds for the city’s youngsters who had nowhere else to go to amuse themselves. The idea that it could be a glittering city the same as Los Angeles was turning out to be seemed beyond strange to her.

“The SHIELD offices are over there. Technically it is the Daniel J. Sousa building, most just call it SHIELD LA HQ, or the Sousa building if they want to be picky.” He pointed towards an area to the west of the downtown area where the tall buildings gave way to apartment blocks and hotels. Several taller office blocks squatted in the middle of all of it. “It’s in the middle of Koreatown, which perhaps isn’t quite as glamorous, but the food is amazing, so that makes up for it.”

“Koreatown?” They had one of those now?

“Well, it’s a big mix of everything in the neighborhood; Korean, Central American, Mexican, Bangladeshi, it’s one of the most culturally diverse areas. Also, it’s where the consulates of about seven nations are located, which is really the reason why we picked the area, but the late-night karaoke bars don’t hurt.”

“Karaoke?”

“Trust me, it’s something you would only ever do if you were drunk.”

“All right,” she took his word on that. “You named it for Daniel?”

“He was the first chief out here, so it seemed fitting, especially after he disappeared.”

Peggy whipped around to stare at him, cold, awful dread forming in her gut. “Disappeared? Did you say…”

Coulson was clearly just as surprised as she was, flushing in open discomfort. “I...though you knew...Fury didn’t tell you?”

“He told me Daniel had opened an investigation, not what happened to him!”

“But I thought Sharon…”

Peggy swallowed, eyes burning, the note in her email box with Daniel’s unopened file still waiting. “I...hadn’t looked at it yet. I couldn’t bring myself to, I...kept putting it off.”

“I see.” A mixture of understanding and resolve coalesced as he nodded to himself. “Chief Sousa was on a case out at a SHIELD facility in Nevada. No one knows what the case was or what it was about. He simply disappeared, much like you did. He was the second agent of SHIELD to go missing and for a time it caused panic in the ranks as Sousa had been close to you and had demanded a full investigation, only to disappear under as mysterious circumstances as you did. Considering this was at the height of the Red Scare, I think it was just assumed you both were taken out by Russian spies.”

“I clearly wasn’t,” Peggy muttered, her mind reeling as she considered the possibilities. “No one saw him go?”

“No, but there were reports of him showing up in Los Angeles to deliver something to Howard Stark, but no trace of him was found. Not even his body turned up. It was as if he vanished.” Coulson frowned, carefully thoughtful. “You don’t think…”

Peggy did think, she was always thinking, and considering the circumstances of his disappearance, the strange way it happened, the fact he left without a trace. “Coulson, I’m not saying it does happen, I don’t know. Lang told me so very little about the future, only about the Avengers and that I was needed, it could be a possibility. But...it’s years at the least before the technology is developed. I certainly don’t even know how to work it and the one person who did is the one who is just stepping off a plane after months of torture and abuse in Afghanistan. If it’s true...if that is what happened, it might be years before we know it.”

She could see the other man swallow hard at the thought. “And if that wasn’t what happened? What if he really was shot and killed and dumped somewhere in the Nevada desert, never to be seen again?”

“Then I want to at least find out the truth,” she murmured, fiercely, eyes stinging at the thought. “I...he was my friend, when no one else in the department was. Everything else that happened...I need to do that much for him. I owe him that much.”

Coulson hadn’t expected any of this, clearly, but she could see him turn it over, a firm resolve settle in with a nod. “How about we get through this right now, see what we can settle on the Stark case, and then maybe we can look into it. Right now we don’t know if Stark is mixed up in illegal arms or not, and I hate to say it, that’s more pressing than a cold case on Daniel Sousa.”

He was right, much as she hated to admit it.

“Besides,” he continued pointedly. “We both have projects we are working on. You have to figure out how SHIELD can justify funding the Avengers Project, while I...will likely be stuck in the middle of the New Mexico desert for the next several months?”

That piqued Peggy’s curiosity. “New Mexico? For what?”

Coulson’s ever equinanomous expression barely flickered, but there was humor there all the same. “I’m sorry, Director, I don’t know if you have clearance for that.”

“No clearance for the top secret project in the New Mexico desert when I’m working on the top secret, superhero initiative?”

“Fury’s orders, I’m afraid, and I give you permission to give him hell about it. Till then, I sadly have to keep it on a need to know basis.” He at least looked somewhat apologetic. “I hope you understand, Director. Even I have someone I answer to.”

“Wheels within wheels, is it?”

“Director Fury has many plates spinning. It’s part of why he passed the Avengers on to you.”

“And no one gets to know the whole picture?” Peggy thought uncomfortably of both Sharon and Cassandra’s concerns regarding SHIELD. She wondered if Coulson had any.

“I don’t even know the whole picture.”

“And you simply trust that Fury is correct and safe in his judgements?”

Coulson lifted a shoulder. “He trusted you when you walked into the door, didn’t he? His instincts aren’t so bad.”

She would give Coulson points for his loyalty. She knew little about him, but from what she could tell, he seemed a good man. Peggy also knew that good men could often be called on to do less than good things, even horrible ones. Michael had been a good man faced with such a dilemma. “You trust him implicitly?”

He nodded, letting loose a long sigh. “Fury recruited me out of college. I was twenty-two, thought I’d end up teaching high school history with my degree, because what else can you do with a history degree? I did my senior research thesis on SHIELD, actually...well, you specifically, and Colonel Philips, and Howard Stark, the triumvirate that built the SSR and founded SHIELD. I didn’t expect anyone to read it, but next thing I know Fury’s showing up on my front doorstep from Bogata with the offer. I figured it was better than showing bored teenagers historical documentaries all day and then maybe coach baseball on the side, so I said I was in. So when I signed up, they sent me straight over to the communications academy for training. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.”

The reference to passing go and money was lost on Peggy, but the Academy of Communication was not, as she had picked up in her own training on the Farm. “What was wrong with that?”

In her all too brief acquaintance with him, Peggy didn’t think she had ever seen Couslon roll his eyes before. “Ask Sharon when next you speak to her, that’s the academy she went to as well. It’s the biggest, yes, and certainly the work is needed, but it is...how to put it...not the one you want to get into if you want to be taken seriously as a field agent?”

Peggy thought of Cassandra Kam and their conversations together. “I see what you mean.”

“Yeah, relegated to the ranks of a future number cruncher and data analyst. Perhaps I would have made something investigatory, maybe.” He grimaced, his dignity and pride perhaps still stinging at that blow. “Anyway, so I graduated and got into the agency and was working mostly as a desk jockey here in the LA office. I likely would have stayed there if Fury hadn’t gotten assigned here under the chief. Keller was his name. If we hadn’t crossed paths again, I would have likely been stuck there. Instead, Fury put in a good word about me to Keller and sent me on an extraction mission with one of the top rookie agents at the time. Of course Keller didn’t make it easy and the whole thing nearly backfired. My partner ended up in the San Francisco Bay for a few hours before I found her, but she was alive at least.”

“Not the most auspicious start,” Peggy teased, knowing she could say little more for some of her own missions. “I see it didn’t wreck your promising career?”

“No, mostly because Fury went to bat for me with Keller. Between him and May, they gave me the chances no one else was going to. I was with Fury on the case where he came up with the Avengers Initiative. After that…”

He paused, carefully choosing his words. “Fury’s methods aren’t for everyone, I won’t lie. I’m more of a Steve Rogers type myself, I suppose, or I would at least like to be. Maybe that was why I wasn’t sent to the operative academy, who knows. Fury is a bit more practically in his methods, his thinking, of seeing the long game and what we have to do to ensure our protection. He is a good man, he wants to do what’s right, just sometimes to do what’s right you got to break a few eggs to do it.”

“Breaking a few eggs?” Howard was rather fond of that phrase as she recalled. “I’ll let you in on a secret, Coulson, for all that the world thought of Steve Rogers as a black and white man who always did right, he wasn't beyond breaking a few eggs himself...often. I sometimes thought he was determined to make any plan we ever built into an omelette. You are right on one score, he would have made a horrible operative.”

Coulson, ever hungry for stories of Captain America, stared at her with wide eyes. “Seriously, I will need the stories.”

“Well, when we have had some drinks and are singing karaoke somewhere near the Sousa Building, perhaps I will tell you.” She meant to make him laugh and at least succeeded in getting a grin out of him. He was always so uptight around her and rare she could get him to ever see her as a person and not the mythical Peggy Carter. Pleased with herself, she glanced out of the window once more to the cramped, closed in buildings filling in every block of the city between the long ribbon of silver highway stretch from north to south and the wide, glittering expanse of dark blue in the distance, shimmering with light so bright it was almost blinding. “So where are we going?”

“Santa Monica, there is an airport there we can land at and meet a car we can drive up the coast with. Believe me, it’s much easier than trying to land at headquarters than drive from downtown to Malibu, we will spend the rest of our lives in traffic at this time of day.”

Judging from the number of cars on the highway below, she could see why.

They landed in a small airfield filled with planes that were not the giant, commercial variety that she had gotten to know in her few trips from New York to Washington. One section of the airport was closed off and private, and a number of other similar quinjets rested there, as well as helicopters, planes, and other vehicles. She guessed this part of the property was likely leased for SHIELD’s use. As the pilot let them out and began communicating via the radio to someone on the other end, she and Coulson made their way out, met already by a young, blonde agent who looked as intimidating meeting the two of them as Peggy had ever seen anyone be.

“Agent Coulson, Director Carter.” She stuck out a hand to greet both of them. “I’m Agent Meade, it’s a pleasure. I’ve requisitioned you a car for today. I’ve made sure it was filled up and checked and it should be ready to go.

She handed a tablet to Coulson who had slipped on his shiny aviator glasses and was perusing it carefully, nodding as he read through whatever document was on there. “Is this the part where I initial and then tell you I don’t want to purchase the company insurance because it’s a scam?”

Clearly, it was meant as a joke, but Peggy missed out on the humor. The young agent got it as she laughed, shaking her head. “Just a thumb print, Agent Coulson. I will need one from Director Carter as well if she is going to be driving.”

“Oh no, not in that mess. I’ve seen that highway and that is terrifying.” She had braved driving in the modern era elsewhere, but she didn’t feel she was quite up for that yet. Mr. Jarvis, bless him, would have had heart palpitations at that.

“Welcome to the unique and particular horror that is the 405 Freeway, Director Carter,” Coulson teased as he took a key fob from the young agent. “I’ll bring it back without a scratch. It’s just Malibu, I can take the PCH up, right?”

The young agent frowned, shaking her head. “No, they didn’t radio you in the quinjet?”

Coulson paused in mid-stride to a large, black SUV. “Radio about what?”

The poor woman frowned apologetically. “Tony Stark has called a press conference at his offices in El Segundo. He’s on his way there from Edwards Air Force Base right now. Everyone who was camped outside of his house is scrambling down to get here in time.”

Coulson seemed more pleased with this. “Closer to us, though if he’s coming from Lancaster, it will be a while. Perhaps we can get a front row seat.”

“Because that’s what I want this adventure to be, a spectacle,” Peggy grumbled as she followed Coulson to the large vehicle waiting for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Daniel! Well, as this is a different timeline, we will see what will become of Daniel eventually. Agents of SHIELD is doing their thing and I feel I can turf it off for a bit.
> 
> As to why I put the SHIELD HQ in LA (as seen in Captain Marvel) in K-Town...I Googled the building they used. If you think on it, after the riots, it would make sense that SHIELD would maybe relocate that way to help secure things and add to the rebuilding. So, yes, it's in K-Town, because I like K-Town.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy makes a connection.

If Howard Stark had been a man of large dreams and an outsized ego, then Stark Industries was the manifestation of all of that in real life form. As stunning as the day had already been for her, seeing the complex that formed the heart of Howard’s industrial empire spread across acres of Los Angeles coastal land left her somewhat in awe. He had always carried on about his vision, but to see it made real reminded her just how potent a force of nature he had been when she had known him, when he’d been young enough to have such big ideas and careless enough to try and create them.

“And this is the empire he left behind to his son?”

“It’s part of it, yeah.” Coulson had parked in the visitors' structure, their badges only getting them a slightly better parking spot than the press who were beginning to stream in, gleeful in the curiosity on the state of Tony Stark. They trailed behind one reporter and a man carrying what Peggy supposed was a modern camera for television reporting, scoping out an area of well-trimmed and groomed rosemary bushes to use as a backdrop, discussing the aesthetics of those rather than the shiny front of the visitors center just meters away. With a mild grimace of antipathy, Coulson stepped around them as they stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to carry on their debate. He pivoted neatly around them before continuing his thought.

“This is the main aerospace research facility, of course, where they do a lot of different sort of work, but they have others. Obviously, there’s Stark Tower in New York where a lot of the non-research business is housed. There is, I believe, a computer development and manufacturing facility in San Jose, another aerospace design facility in Seattle, more research going on in Switzerland - I don’t even know what for - and some sort of partnership with a medical research lab in South Korea. That’s not including the many subsidiaries and different arms of diversification such as agriculture and food sciences, commercial and retail, architecture and design, I think he owns a few race cars and maybe has part ownership of several sports teams.”

“All this from a kid who grew up in the Lower East Side playing stickball with Joseph Manfredi.” It was nearly far too ridiculous to imagine, and yet here she was. Howard had gotten lucky winning the lucrative Lend-Lease contract during the war, making his fortune and laying the foundation for all of this. If she were honest with herself, in a million years she didn’t think that he would ever build something like this. Which begged the question of how much of this was Howard’s after all and how much of it came at the direction of Stane’s guiding hand?

“Right this way!” A helpful looking young man with a Stark Industries badge on the lapel of his jacket waved them around the crowd of cameras and reporters, barely contained behind rope lines in the plaza, and inside into a lobby of tiles and glass. More reporters loitered, standing in front of a podium and microphone set up with no chairs to rest in. Along the parameters of the room, photographers and people with film camera waited, adjusting their lenses to catch the optimal angle as most others herded in the middle, whispering and chattering with one another, creating something of a din inside the high, open space.

“This is friendly,” Coulson quipped, eyeing the space over his sunglasses, slipping them off to fold neatly and place in his front breast pocket. “No chairs set up, nothing prepped.”

“I imagine his team was a bit taken by surprise,” Peggy observed as she watched one harassed looking young woman try to keep three camera people off the glass of a far window. “How long will it take for his team to get here.”

“From Lancaster? About an hour and a half this time of day, give or take.” Coulson checked his watch. “He should be here any minute.”

Peggy nodded as she studied the knot of reporters in front of her. One clump of three, two men and a woman, openly speculated on theories as to why a press conference was even called. The consensus seemed to be that it was more a stunt to prove that Stark was alive and himself so he could shake them off his back. Peggy had to admit, it wasn’t precisely a false assessment.

“Do you think he will be up to this?” Coulson was more idly curious that truly doubtful.

Peggy shrugged. “It’s his party, clearly, he has something he wants to say. I’ve never known a Stark who didn’t know how to play to a camera.”

“You still think he didn’t know?”

“I have to believe that until he’s otherwise proven guilty. Isn’t that how the courts of law work?”

“Touché,” Coulson gallant granted her. “That said, if he isn’t?”

“You are certain he is up to things here?”

Coulson shrugged. “I honestly don’t know what to believe. Common sense says he shouldn’t be alive right now, he should be dead. Anyone else in his shoes should have been, but he wasn’t. You got to ask yourself why.”

Peggy found herself growing irritated with the question in general. “In the absence of further information, it’s wiser to withhold judgement until we get that information. To do otherwise is to condemn a man who may not deserve it at all.”

“I’m not saying your wrong, only that the possibility exists. If it does, Howard’s son or not, could you do what needs to be done?”

Peggy didn’t get a chance to answer. Outside there was a din of people shouting questions or just Stark’s name as the reflections of hundreds of camera flash bulbs popped in and out of existence through the glass and down the hallway. Within minutes, a surge of security and employees washed through, bringing with them the familiar tall figure of Stane, a grin splitting his face. His arm was wrapped around a thoroughly exhausted looking Tony Stark, stumbling beside him with a wrapped sandwich in hand. Behind them both trailed Colonel Rhodes and more of an entourage, including a tall, beefy man who stoically hovered near Stark, likely the driver who served as his protection, Hogan. They made their way towards the front as cameras snapped and people called out questions. One lone figure didn’t get swept up by the crowd up to the front, however. The tall, strawberry blonde in her trim suit and elegant shoes pulled up in the back of the room, watching the front with mingled relief, worry, and apprehension. Pepper recognized her in an instant as Pepper Potts.

“I’m going to see if I can get her attention,” Coulson whispered softly when he caught Peggy’s eye. “If nothing else, perhaps I can make an appointment and have her consider speaking with me.”

“She’s already been through Sharon once. You’ll have to convince her.”

“I know, but if we strike out with Stark, she’s our next bet.”

“Good luck,” Peggy murmured as Coulson cooly and quietly moved over to chat with Potts. The woman looked startled at first at his intrusion, as polite and unobtrusive as it was. Potts was a professional, though, and she listened, even if she only did so with half an ear. Peggy could tell a polite brush off when she saw one, and Potts had perhaps the best she’d seen from an assistant yet.

“Hey, would it be all right if everyone sat down?”

Peggy whipped back towards the front where Tony held court, literally, as he urged all the gathered reporters to sit on the cold, tile floor in their suits and skirts, like children in a classroom. They obliged him with varying degrees of gracefulness as he sat, collapsing in front of the podium with his sandwich, Stane and Rhodes beside him. The reporters and those gathered all exchanged nervous and curious looks, tittering softly. Peggy for her part chose instead to simply move further to the back, to stand along the wall and wait and watch.

“Good to see you…” A hint of genuine emotion flickered under a very forced and tired mask, the muscle memory of perhaps hundreds of these type of media presentations overlayed on top of months of whatever hardship he’d had to face in Afghanistan. He paused, seemingly searching for words as he fumbled with the sandwich in paper, looking to Stane, something boyish and vulnerable in the moment.

“I never got to say goodbye to Dad,” he murmured, though it wasn’t clear if he was saying it to his long-time mentor or the confused reporters watching him hungrily. “I never got to say goodbye to my father. There’s questions I would have asked him. I would have asked him how he felt about what his company did, if he was conflicted, if he ever had doubts - or maybe he was every inch the man we all remember from the newsreels.”

Peggy’s heart lurched at that, remembering all too well the difference between the cocky, self-confident man portrayed on film and the man who had been her friend with all of his many faults and foibles. What man had Howard become in the decades she missed? What impression had he given his son to make him wonder now?

“I saw young Americans killed,” Tony continued, voice ringing, a world of sadness and anger under those words. “By the very weapons I created to defend and protect them. And I saw that I had become a part of a system that is comfortable with zero accountability.”

The weight of his statement fell heavily in the room as there were flickers of glances and the click of cameras. On Rhodes and Stane’s faces there was clear worry, and even Potts standing next to Coulson looked brokenhearted as she watched the profound grief from a man who months ago likely would never have even acknowledged something like this in his world.

“Mr. Stark,” one reporter called, holding up a hand politely, catching Tony’s attention.

“Hey, Ben!” He smiled, fondly, clearly familiar with the man, enough so to be personable. That was the trick with handling the media, one Peggy recognized, but perhaps there was a small bit of pleasure and relief in his voice as he called on the man by name, happy to just be able to do it, to see him alive.

“What happened over there?” The reporter asked with blunt curiosity, laying the reason they were all there out on the table.

Peggy felt her nails bite into the skin of her palm, her mouth dry as she watched him stop and consider, his sandwich forgotten as something dark surfaced beneath his television persona. “I had my eyes opened,” he replied, dark eyes sweeping across the small crowd. “I came to realize I have more to offer this world than just making things blow up. That is why, effective immediately, I am shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark International until such time as I can decide what the future of the company will be.”

He hadn’t finished speaking before pandemonium broke out, hands and bodies leaping up with desperate questions as beside him Stane and Rhodes looked stunned. It only took a second, however, before Stane dove in, wrapping a companionable arm around Stark as he chuckled, all pleased relief and rye bemusement as he effectively cut Stark off. “What we should take away from this is that Tony is back and he’s healthier than ever! We’re going to have a little internal discussion and we’ll get back to you with a follow-up.”

The questions didn’t stop, however, as Stane waved and smiled and Tony politely disengaged from his mentor, patting him on the back. While the crowd shouted out questions about what this would mean for the company and its profits, the future for Stark Industries, and the relationship with the US military, Stane and Rhodes attempted to bring order to the chaos. While they did that, Peggy noticed Tony ever so quietly drop off to the side, creeping towards an exit there, away from the madness.

Peggy only spared a pointed glance to Coulson as she made her way out of the front doors to follow. No one noticed, really, caught up in the drama in the front of the room. Outside, the sea of reporters there looked up eagerly, but few recognized her, blessedly, and they soon returned back to looking at their phones and chatting with each other in the hopes of catching Stark. She paused in front of them only long enough to scan the outline of the building, the fast expanse of that formed the wing that Stark went down.

“Excuse me,” she called to one reporter, a youthful man who hardly looked old enough to be doing the sort of reporting work he was. “I’m afraid I got a bit turned around looking for he ladies. I was meeting my team over there, but I’m not sure what it is.”

Ignoring the fact that she lacked any sort of ID marking her as media, the young journalist seemed pleased to help, looking towards where she pointed. “Oh, that! It’s where they house the Arc Reactor. Right now they have it off limits, though, I don’t think you can get in.”

“No worries,” she trilled, imitating Sharon’s carefree slang. “I just needed a landmark for them to find me. This place is huge.”

“Of course,” the reporter smiled, flushing a little in his boyishness. Peggy was afraid if she smiled any harder, he just might faint. Instead, she moved around the crowd and the circular drive towards the space that she was sure was where Tony had gone. She was in luck as she saw it was relatively free of both reporters and security, far enough that it didn’t seem to be close to the center of action, which was perhaps why he had chosen it to flee down in the first place.

She stepped inside, the room cool and pleasant after the bright lights of the press room. It was no less large inside, she discovered, looking into the large expanse of steel and tile into a space that housed a large turbine like structure in its middle. They called it an Arc Reactor, and while Peggy didn’t get all the mechanics behind it, she understood enough to get at what Howard was trying to create - a sustainable, long lasting type of energy production that would be both controllable and require no need for the sorts of fuel and resources that other forms of energy would need. It would mean no need to find uranium or plutonium, no need to have a stake in countries with oil reserves, no need to be fighting over what precious few resources were available to them. It could mean, hopefully, one less reason for any of them to need to go to war.

It was a nice dream. She’d had that dream too, once, when founding SHIELD. Like many dreams, it simply wasn’t sustainable or attainable. War came whether they liked it or not, and if she had learned nothing else in her many history lessons from her missing six decades it was that it often happened whether you wanted it to at all or not. There would always be someone else who would want it.

So much for dreams, she thought sadly as she regarded the giant structure, Howard’s life’s work. It was beautiful, she supposed, in that way that engineers found things beautiful. On the far side, studying it with the same sort of quiet regard she was, stood his son, suit jacket off, his expression unreadable. Tony hadn’t seemed to notice her and didn’t even look her way as her careful steps rang on the tile. The closer she got, the more heart-rending it was to see him. There was so much of the man she once knew in this one, from his dark hair and bright, brilliant, calculating dark eyes, to the way he stood, feet planted as he surveyed the world with a mind that wouldn’t stop. But Sharon’s warning rang true for her as well, this wasn’t Howard and she couldn’t treat him as such.

“Excuse me,” she murmured as quietly and non threateningly as possible, given what he had just been through. She stopped far enough away not to startle as he turned to her, the sad contemplation immediately slipped into a more press-ready face, an easy smile, tight and ragged at the edges. He predictably looked her up and down, perhaps more out of habit than true interest, though he weakly tried to put on a good show.

“Normally, I would be interested, but I can’t believe I’m saying this, I just did get back from captivity for three months and I’d like to just sleep for a zillion years, so I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much company.”

“It’s a good thing I am not interested in yours,” she shot back, almost on instinct, the same tart reprove she would have used on his father. She hadn’t meant to be so harsh, but it tripped off her tongue and far from insulting him it only seemed to amuse him and put him at something of his ease.

“Well, frankness is also appreciated, but if you’re here for an interview you’ll have to speak with Miss Potts, my assistant. I’m not granting anything one-on-one at this time...though in future, I may be convinced.”

“I’m not here for an interview, precisely.” She ignored the subtle suggestion about convincing him, instead pulling out one of her business cards from inside her purse. “I’m here to talk with you about what happened. My name is Margaret Carter. I’m with SHIELD.”

If her name had any meaning for him it didn’t register. The name of SHIELD did. “Like the spy network?”

“Among other things,” she affirmed as he stared at the card, pondering it for long seconds.

“I’m not usually keen on being handed things,” he shrugged, perhaps as an excuse not to take it, perhaps as a brush off. “It’s a...thing…”

Peggy only smiled, placing it then on the flat top of the railing not far from his hands. “You can take it when you’re ready.”

He glanced at it for a long moment, then back up at her, curious and guarded all at once. “What does SHIELD want with me? Don’t you guys go spy on Russian diplomats and African warlords or something?”

“Only to understand what happened.”

“I’m sure that the military has a full report.”

Peggy only smiled politely at his evasiveness. “Did you know that the Department of Defense waited a whole month to announce that you were even missing?”

He hadn’t known that. Something flared briefly, then clicked with other pieces, all coalescing into a sort of cynical laugh. “I bet that went over well with Rhodey.”

She assumed that the name referred to Colonel Rhodes. “He was the one who reached out to us. He’s a good friend, he wanted someone, anyone to help get you back.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, finally taking her card in his long fingers, studying it. “Special director? That’s impressive. What’s so special they have you directing?”

“What sort of employee for a secretive organization of counter-intelligence and global security agents would I be if I told you that?”

“Good point.” He flipped the card in his fingers and tucked it away into his front shirt pocket. “So they sent the big guns out to talk with me. I guess I should be honored.”

“Hardly that, but they do want to speak to you when you are ready.”

That gave him pause. “What, not here to give me the third degree right now? I mean, if you’re doing it, it might be...interesting.”

Peggy had to admit he was far smoother in his delivery than his father was, but she was also well used to not taking that bait. “Mr. Stark, you’ve been through a lot. I know that, you know that. If I took you in to answer questions now, I’m not sure I’d get the whole story. When you are ready, though, we would like to talk to you. We aren’t here to demand answers, just to understand what happened.”

He grimaced, unconsciously rubbing a hand across his chest as he mulled over her words. “You came all the way out here just to give me a pep talk and tell me you’re here to listen?”

“Would you rather I have handcuffs and drag you to a holding cell?”

She could seem him visibly recoil, his fingers on his chest clutching...something. There was some device there, something attached underneath the fine fabric of his clothes. But he played it cool, a tired, dry flirtatious smile trying to crawl up his face. “Well, it’s not exactly my sort of kink, but I’m game to try anything if you are. Do I need a safe word?”

Peggy stopped just short of lecturing him for being lewd. “I doubt that you are very much up to anything, Mr. Stark. That said, I am patient, but not so patient I won’t come calling again if you put it off too long. When you are ready, please call.”

Behind her there was a whirring sound and the voice of Stane calling to someone else in the distance. Peggy turned to see him wheeling over on a sort of strange, two wheel scooter, balancing perfectly even under his tall height. He recognized her in an instant as he came to a stop, something hard and curious in his polite and friendly smile.

“Director Carter, I didn’t know you were here! Surprise, surprise!” He met her with his hand extended. She took it politely as he looked towards Tony. “I see you’ve met Miss Carter from SHIELD.”

“Yeah!” Tony’s hand went from the middle of his chest to his front pocket where her card lay. “We may have to have drinks sometime.”

Stane chuckled, throwing an arm around him. “I’m glad to see some things haven’t changed. You need to thank the director and SHIELD, Tony, they threw a hell of a lot of resources towards finding you. Without her, we would have given up hope.”

“I think the real person you should be thanking is Colonel Rhodes,” Peggy countered. “He raised the alarm, he reached out to us, and he gave us the information we needed to find you. Had he not it would have been a needle in a haystack.”

Tony cocked his head, something catching his attention as he considered, then smiled, a real one, grateful. “Thank you for everything.”

“Of course,” she replied. She held out her hand for him to take. “We are glad you are home. Just remember I am here.”

He nodded as he took her fingers firmly, before Peggy did the same with Stane. “Goodbye, gentleman. Mr. Stark, I’m happy you are back, safe and sound. Till we meet again.”

She turned then to walk out, leaving the two of them muttering to each other as she left. She paused only once to glance back before she headed out of the door. Whatever was going on, Tony was showing Stane whatever was under his shirt, whatever he clutched when she brought up his ordeal. Stane looked both awed and worried. Peggy turned, curious but knowing her continued presence would only draw suspicion. 

Once outside, she pulled out her phone to see a message from Coulson saying only to meet him at the car. Trekking past the reporters, she considered her first meeting with Howard’s son. Underneath the bravado and flirtation, all an obvious cover, she could see whatever he had been through had an effect on him. He had the same worn and ragged look she had seen on so many GIs held for months and years in prison camps under terrifying conditions. The smiles, the suggestions, the comments, all were desperate attempts to cover it up, to prove to others, perhaps even himself, that he was fine, that he was the same old guy. The Howling Commandos all had that habit right after Azanno as she recalled. Each were a bit different, but there were little things; laughing too hard at a joke, drinking a little too much of the flowing alcohol, flirting just a little too hard. They all had been guilty of the latter, but she remembered Barnes the most as he had flirted with her, pulling out the sort of charm he might have once used in a dance hall in Brooklyn and charmed the socks of some silly girl with. But dig just underneath of that bravado, there was always something tired, sad, terrified and angry lying just beneath it. She had a feeling that was where Tony Stark currently was.

Coulson was waiting by the car, sunglasses on, curious as she walked up. “How did it go?”

“I gave him my information. We will see if he reaches out.”

Coulson arched an eyebrow at her over his mirrored glasses. “You think he will?”

“Perhaps he will, perhaps he won’t, but I don’t think now he was up for it. Give him some time to sort it out, I doubt he would have given us anything straight as it was.”

He sighed, unhappy but conceding the point. “You’re probably right.”

“How about you with Potts?”

“Much the same. She wasn’t about to give up her boss. Best I could get out of her was to set up an appointment to talk. She is quite good at what she does.”

“I have to admit, she is. Hopefully, he pays her well.” Peggy rounded the car to climb into the passenger's seat. “Did you set up an appointment?”

“Not yet, but persistence means she will meet with me at some point, if nothing else to shut me up and get me out of her hair, right?”

“One of the things I do appreciation about you, Agent Coulson, is that you are so hopeful in the face of ridiculous odds.”

“That from you, Director, is perhaps one of the best compliments I’ve ever had.”

She laughed at him as he started the engine. “Now what do we do?”

He waited till he had backed the SUV out of the space so he could exit the parking garage to answer. “We wait and hope they reach out to us. In the meantime, we move on to other objectives. I know you have a project you are working on.”

And she knew he was well aware of it. “I am and I suppose I’ll have to pick it back up. You have no interest in working on it?”

Coulson was polite enough not to openly display the doubts he clearly had. “I think the idea isn’t wholly and completely insane, but I think that it requires a lot of factors falling into place. We’ve been gathering information on potential candidates for years, people who have special abilities who might be willing to work on a team like this, but pulling them together and building the team...that’s something different.”

“I don’t disagree. Building something like this is not easy to do. Heaven knows Phillips tried many times over during the war, and the only one that ever stuck was the Howling Commandos.” The whole lot of them were reprobates, but she had loved them for it, despite it all. They were good - very good - and just reckless enough to bend the rules when need be, to push the limits and in doing so work very effectively together. That sort of chemistry only ever seemed to happen on accident, by happenstance, something the SSR had never been able to recreate outside of the Howling Commandos ever again.

“I still can’t believe you knew them,” Coulson shook his head in awe. “Half the stories, are they even true?”

“Probably only half of them,” she theorized, not knowing what stories he had heard. “They were rather fond of embellishing their own feets.”

“I’m sure,” he chuckled, pulling into traffic. “How they came together like that and did what they did, I don’t think you can catch that sort of lightning in a bottle twice.”

“No,” she admitted, softly, thinking of a smoky pub in London, of the music playing off the old piano, the men singing drunkenly, the smell of beeswax, bodies, and booze - and of course the one man she had hoped to impress that night as she wandered in. “Steve had been the one to unite them. He’d gotten to know all of them while on the march from Azzano, they had come to trust him. He brought them together on nothing more than a promise to hunt HYDRA and Nazis and many adventures along the way. They were in. He had that effect on people, being able to connect those who had usually no business wanting to unite together in common purpose.”

“I know,” Coulson’s reply was a bit on the giddy side for the normally controlled, professional man. “I watched all of his movies as a kid growing up.”

That made Peggy laugh. She had forgotten about those. “Were any of them good?”

“No, but to a nine-year-old, that doesn’t matter. They would come on Sunday afternoons on television and I’d watch them with my father.” There was wistfulness there and Peggy remembered he’d mentioned his parents had passed away when he was still younger.

“That’s a good memory to have,” she smiled at his profile as he maneuvered from the massive Stark Industries complex to the freeway up ahead.

“Yeah, well Dad watched them when he was a boy growing up in the Midwest during the war, and so it was sort of a right of passage. He was the one who loved Cap first. I suppose that’s why I like them as well. My father wanted to be like him and so did I. Unfortunately, I never did manage to get my discus technique down well enough to use a shield in battle, but I do have some pretty sweet hand-to-hand skills.”

At that, Peggy laughed outright. “That stupid shield...ahh, well that happened I think more organically than anything, Steve was really the worst hand-to-hand fighter in the beginning.” Even his most basic of basic training hadn’t really fully prepared him for that, but the serum had enhanced his mental acuity so much he was able to learn with startling speed. “I believe it evolved out of his self-defense mechanisms when he was a boy getting into scraps in back alleys with Barnes. Trash can lids sometimes were at hand to fight or protect himself with.”

“One day, I’ll need to get his story from you.”

“I don’t know how much I have to tell.” She thought of him, frozen somewhere a continent away. What would he say when they found him and woke him to this brave new world? Would he be just as confused and bemused by it as she was? What will he think of it, with its computers and cell phones, it’s internet and interconnectivity?

Beside her, Coulson brought the conversation back to the topic at hand. “About Stark, do you think he was serious in there?”

“About ending his weapons program?” That had been a shock to everyone. The weapons side of the company was at the heart and soul of Stark Industries, the core which had founded the company so long ago. It had been how Howard had made his mark on the world. “He seemed to be honest in the moment, though I think there is something to it. He saw something over there, experienced...something. You could see it in his eyes. Whatever happened, that’s what precipitated the events of today.”

“If he wasn’t aware of the sale of his arms to them, perhaps he is now?”

“Probably, and that precipitated all of this.” She considered the way he clutched at his chest while they spoke, the way his fingers tightened on something underneath the fabric. “Do you have his medical report by any chance?”

“No, Rhodes only called it in. We haven’t been able to get our hands on it, which isn’t surprising. As a private citizen, HIPAA laws would protect his information, so I doubt we would get them anyway. Why, do you suspect something?”

“I think he was more injured in Afghanistan than he has let on to the public. He has something going on, perhaps it has something to do with that. I’m not sure, but I think his desire to stop creating weapons is real enough. I don’t think the US military will appreciate that overly much, judging from Rhodes’ reaction.”

“No they will not, though he is far from the first wealthy person to have a ‘come to Jesus’ sort of moment and then to a complete 180 on his stance. The question is if it will stick or not.”

“Who knows.” Peggy wasn’t sure. Howard had destroyed all of his so-called ‘bad babies’ after the Leviathan incident, too fearful of them getting in the wrong hands. That said, it clearly hadn’t stopped him from creating other weapons in the hope of saving the world, ones that had inspired his son to create his own that ended up in the hands of terrorists. “I suppose we will have to wait and see.”

“I suppose we will,” Coulson replied, not pleased with the answer but knowing they would have to accept it for now. Patience was the name of the game at the moment, much as they both disliked it. Either Stark would come to them or they would find some piece out that would force everything forward. Either way, for now their main objective was done, Stark was home, safe and sound. For how long he would stay that way...that was the question. All Peggy had was that at some point he would become an Avenger, that he would become something of a figure enough to buck heads with Steve and to split them. How that happened, Peggy didn’t know.

Much like Coulson, she would have to wait and see.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy has conversations with friends.

Unsurprisingly, weeks went by without word from Stark.

The media had a frenzy regarding his sudden rescue and now reclusiveness. Peggy wasn’t particularly sure why they had expected for him to throw himself back into the life he had once lived with its endless parties, women, alcohol and all manner of other vices, but his lack of outrageous behavior had many theorizing that the great Tony Stark had finally had his emotional break, had cut himself off from society, that he had lost his mind!

“I’m not so sure that he is crazy,” Cassandra mused as she sat in Peggy’s office discussing it. Since Sharon’s return to Washington, the other agent had become something of a companion, often coming by simply to say hello. Peggy found she appreciated hers desire to just connect. It reminded her a great deal of Angie.

Peggy paused in her reviewing of files as she glanced over the computer monitor to the screen Cassandra had been watching. “He’s not, but he is a man who has been through a rather massive ordeal. It is small wonder he wants to keep to himself for the time being.”

“He hasn’t explained yet how he got out, has he?”

“No, not yet.” Peggy knew she had her suspicions based on the evidence Agent Burk had from the satellite images, but what really had happened still was known only to Stark. “How has your life been back in requisitions?”

“Boring,” Cassandra sighed, picking at a salad dispiritedly. “I had to walk through a townhome for Alexander Pierce’s granddaughter today. She’s starting college at NYU in the fall and he doesn’t want her staying in campus housing.”

“And he’s using SHIELD resources to requisition her a place to stay?” 

“Not the worst idea in the world, considering the track record his family has had with terrorists. Her mother once was in an embassy that got taken hostage, so I think he’s a bit paranoid. And you got to admit the granddaughter of the head of the World Security Council is kind of a target; eighteen, just out of school, on her own for the first time, apt to do something stupid and dangerous.”

When put in that light, Peggy had to admit it was a fair point. “How did the world get to the point where someone’s granddaughter could be a target of kidnapping and attack?”

“Welcome to modern terrorism.” Cassie shrugged, setting her salad aside. “Anyway, it’s nice enough, a shoebox like all things are in the Village, but it is secure so her and her friend living there don't have to worry about outside threats.”

“You do good work,” Peggy assured her, knowing it wasn’t perhaps the most exciting.

“Well, if it keeps a girl going off to college for the first time safe, then I’m glad. Still, I’ve had a taste of investigative work and I found I liked it. Working with you and Sharon, that was fun...interesting.”

“Are you thinking of transferring?”

“I’m not sure,” she admitted, though clearly she had given it consideration. “I mean, David and I keep talking about marriage and settling down, and having to jet set across the country all the time for work is hard on that, you know.”

Cassandra had mentioned a live-in boyfriend, an aspect of the modern world that had surprised Peggy more than it had shocked her. She couldn’t help but think of Miriam Fry and what she would have to say about the scandal of it all. Still, from the way Cassandra spoke of him, he might as well be a husband. He was a lawyer in a firm in the city, still rather junior in the position, but with room to grow. Peggy had yet to meet him but he sounded like a nice man, stable, reliable, sweet - rather fitting for Cassandra from what she knew of her. That said, that usually didn’t make for a tolerant partner when it came to a life of adventure.

“Have you discussed this with him yet,” Peggy asked, curious.

“No, not yet.” She flushed, twiddling her fork. “Work has been insane for him of late and I didn’t want to lay possibly considering a shift in my career on him at the same time, at least not till I’m sure how serious I am about it.”

“Fair,” Peggy acknowledged. Both Fred Wells and Daniel Sousa came to mind. Both men had proposed to her without much in the way of discussion on the subject of marriage and futures, hopes and dreams. They had simply got down on one knee with a ring in hand and asked. To the first she had immediately said yes, mostly as that was the answer she knew she was supposed to give to that question, whether she wanted to or not. To the second, she had broken-heartedly crushed Daniel, walking away from him and that life all together. Neither of those relationships had once opened the discussion of what a future together would look like, if she wanted to work in the field she was in or even how they would even manage it. As much as she had cared for both men deeply, that blind spot for them both hurt to think on. It hadn’t occurred to them that the conversation was even needed.

“You should talk to him, Cassie,” she suggested, her words speaking to the regret that she hadn’t with either Fred or Daniel...or even Steve for that matter, though in fairness they had never gotten that far. “Speaking from a world of regret, I know that this is one of those conversations that should happen. If you feel that your life is leading you towards a different path, that you want to take on a different career, then by all means have the conversation with him. Don’t wait until he pops the question and you find out that you both want two completely different things.”

Cassandra took her caution gracefully, if a bit surprised by it. “Speaking from experience, Peg?”

“A few times over, yes.” She rolled her eyes at the other woman’s marked interest. “Don’t be silly, remember it was a different time. It’s because of that I know that the conversation is crucial. If you don’t, you’ll end up with broken hearts and hurt feelings, and in my case the occasional rash decision to throw yourself into a war, or jump forward through time, things of that nature.”

Her self-deprecation only served to make the other woman laugh. “Honestly, if every turned down proposal ends up with you doing something foolish on the other side, you may want to reconsider the type of men you are dating.”

Peggy made a face but chose not to comment. “If you were to make a career change, what would you want to do?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged, eyeing Peggy’s computer curiously. “What are you working on?”

Peggy had a feeling that was where this was going. “On something for Fury. Why?”

“You have a nose for interesting things, that’s why!”

“You romanticize me far too much,” Peggy shot back. “Besides, there isn’t much to go on here, not yet at least. Perhaps...we’ll see. If this turns into something more, we can talk then.”

Cassandra seemed to find this fair. “Hopefully it does. Till then, I suppose I have to get back to picking what sort of floor tile will be cute enough for a teenage girl and yet stain resistant for whatever spiked punch might be served at any potential apartment parties.”

“Have fun with that,” Peggy laughed, sending Cassie on her way, thoughtful. The more she delved into Fury’s pet project, the more expansive it was beginning to look. What he wanted was less a team and more an entire division, a group of people who would work together to protect against large scale threats, not just humans with extraordinary capabilities but a support staff as well. This would require scientists, engineers, researchers, people who would be dedicated to this outside of the normal SHIELD purview. This was much less about maintaining intelligence in streams outside of national governments and more hyperfocused on global security both on the planet and off it. This was much, much bigger than she had imagined when she said yes.

What had Fury just sucked her into?

She’d been hours more at it - admittedly trying to figure out one of the spreadsheet programs which confused and confounded her - when her phone rang. She picked it up without even looking at who was calling, more because she kept forgetting she could do that in this century. “Carter.”

“You still at the office?” Sharon pretended to be surprised by that.

“Where else would I be?” She smiled, finding she missed her niece. “How are you?”

“Back to boring analyst work,” she lamented, only half meaning that. “I figure things have quieted down now that Stark has been found.”

“For now, at least. Burk is still picking through data and last I knew of Romanoff was in Los Angeles. But as for me, yes, I’ve moved on to other projects.”

“Fury’s pet one?”

“That would be it.” Peggy frowned blandly at budget reports and projections, her eyes hurting from the effort. “I don’t know if your modern computers make this easier or more frustrating.”

“Both,” she joked on the other end of the line. “So, it’s a holiday weekend coming up, Memorial Day. Like always, there is the family get together. I was curious if you were interested.”

Ahhh, yes...Michael’s family. Sharon had been hinting for weeks, months even, and Peggy had skillfully danced around it till now. “How big of a gathering is it?”

“This is smaller than Christmas, just Mom, Dad, the boys and their families, Ash and her boyfriend. Aunt Maggie and her husband will be there, but none of the cousins on that side.”

It still sounded plenty big enough to Peggy. It wasn't that she never felt nerves, she often did, but she had always had the knack of soldiering on through them. Now they swarmed as she considered. She’d avoided Sharon’s polite entreaties for months, convinced that the awkwardness of it all would lead simply to uncomfortableness all around, and yet there in the back of it all sat the guilt and loss of having walked away from all of them so many years ago, leaving them behind to come to an amorphous and unknown future, where all she knew was that there would be some future, potentially world ending event and Steve Rogers was at the other end of it. In hindsight, it sounded thin and outlandish, hardly the thing to give her nephew and niece by way of an explanation as to why she dropped out of their lives completely. Were she in their shoes, even if she did believe it, she wouldn’t necessarily buy the explanation of why it had to happen, at least not without anger and hurt. But if she didn’t go through with it, confront it, see them, she risked the same exact situation she had on her hands in 1948 when she’d purposely avoided all of them and walked away as if they didn’t matter.

“So you want me to fly down there?”

“I could pick you up at the airport and drive you out. My parents live out on a farm in Northern Virginia, it’s really gorgeous.”

“I am sure.” Peggy felt like cotton lined her mouth. “Harry and Maggie are all right with...this?”

Here Sharon paused somewhat. “They should be, I mean, we discussed it. They’re...amazed, confused, curious.”

In the grand scheme of adjectives those weren’t exactly happy or positive, ambiguous at best. “I am shocked they didn’t think you were stark, raving mad.”

“I think the pictures helped.”

Peggy had forgotten she had those on her phone. “What did they say?”

“Dad didn’t say anything for a long time. Maggie kept laughing and said that she had always suspected you did something insane and got caught up in it.”

Peggy wasn’t sure how she felt about her brother’s daughter making that assumption - worse because she wasn’t wrong in it. “And your mother is...all right with this?”

Sharon laughed gaily at that. “I don’t think that a full frontal assault on the house would upset Mom. She has grown so used to the strange stories from Dad about his family and their adventures that she sort of shrugged and asked when she could meet you and if you like scones. You do like those, right?”

Peggy couldn’t remember the last time she had a good one. Despite herself she felt her eyes misty at the memory of she and Michael as children in the warmth of their family kitchen, Mrs. Jenkins making their tea complete with a warm, fresh-from-the-oven scone a piece. The memory was strong enough that she could almost smell them and she found herself smiling. “I do like them, yes.”

“I’ll let her know. She was just looking for an excuse to make them. She’s excited to meet you, so are the boys and Ash. It’s like you told them Captain America is walking through the door.”

Give Fury time, she privately thought, not giving voice to that private longing. “I hope I live up to their expectations.”

“I think they will be disappointed that you aren’t ten feet tall and an Amazon, but you know I think they will survive.”

The more she avoided this, the longer she prolonged this, the more awkward it would get. Peggy knew this, and she had never exactly been one to ever just avoid anything. “All right, I’ll work on getting someone here in the office to help me book a flight and let you know the details.”

Sharon was clearly excited about this, far more than Peggy was. “I’m telling you, they will be thrilled.”

“It will be good to see them again.”

“Let me know what you get set up. I got to head back, there’s a meeting in about ten minutes and I’ve got to prepare myself for two hours of boredom.”

“Best of luck,” Peggy wished as she hung up the line, staring at the phone in quiet trepidation. It had been over six decades since she saw Michael’s children. They’d been so young then, likely hardly remembering her, recalled only in hazy images and through the stories of their father years on. She didn’t know them, really, for all that they were family and they didn’t know her. For all that she got on well with Sharon, could she say the same about the rest of the Carter clan? Would they be as accepting of the sheer insanity of her existence as the rest of SHIELD seemed to inexplicably be?

“This is madness,” she breathed, sighing as she stared at the work she could no longer concentrate on. She shut it down, gathering things as she pulled together her briefcase. A walk would do her good, perhaps stopping at one of those ridiculous coffee shops Sharon seemed addicted to, anything to clear her head. She was out of the door and into the warmth of oncoming summer. This at least felt familiar to her, the growing heat of the city, not so sticky and oppressive as it would be in weeks, but also pleasant enough that one could stroll through the streets without melting. The bustle still felt the same, the business, the people wandering to and fro, the horns of the vehicles, even the smell of garbage waiting to be picked up, these things felt familiar even if everything else about it did not.

She wandered, really not thinking of going much of anywhere, looking in windows, staring at the things inside, the different type of goods that were on sale now, noting the little differences here and there, reading the bills for the various shows playing in the theaters. It was only when she was reading the sign of one building that she realized it was the very shop where Juan worked. She’d not been inside, having only ever met him outside. Curious, she entered into the cool front office, greeted by a young woman at a desk with violently purple hair and a series of multi-colored tattoos up her arms.

“Can I help you?” She was pleasant enough, blinking up at her behind large, black plastic glasses, her hair in two pigtails.

“Is Juan Machado still in?” She felt so formal asking a young woman in a t-shirt and dungarees that question.

“I think so! I can go check. Are you with one of his shows?”

“Oh, no.” Peggy smiled at that idea. “No, I just was wandering by, I hoped to catch him.”

“Who can I say is asking?”

“Peggy Carter.”

She muttered the name to herself, perhaps to memorize it. “Sure, give me a sec.” She wandered into a large space that had that so-called ‘industrial’ look that many places in the city now seemed to embrace, with the stripped down walls, covered in brick and rows of bright lights to work with. Just inside she could see a cluster of young people, all dressed in various different styles of clothes, from casual to more artistic, working on what seemed to be pieces of different costumes. From the back, she could spot Juan and he cheerfully called to her, surprised to see her and clearly pleased.

“Girl, what you doing here?”

“Was on a bit of a walk and felt like company. You up for taking a break and getting something to drink?”

“Alcoholic or no,” he grinned with a wink.

“That is up to you! Coffee or something more mellow.”

“The coffee around here is shit, but there is this great place three blocks over, it’s a British style pub, You’ll like it!”

Peggy eyed him dubiously, but as she was the one imposing on his work day she agreed. “Very well, but so you know I don’t know why American’s serve their beer cold.”

“Because it tastes good that way and shut up,” he teased, calling back to the receptionist. “Marissa, I’m going out. You got my cell if you need.”

“Okay,” she called back, supremely unconcerned. The casualness of this era would never fail to amuse her.

“Come on, I skipped lunch anyway and Papi is working late. I don’t feel so bad sneaking in fish and chips.” He took her arm as he led her down the street companionably, dragging Peggy into his adventure. “I know, I know, it’s nothing like London. I had the best stuff there, but this place will do.”

“In fairness, I’ve not had food there in a long time either.” It wasn’t often she felt a sudden pang for home, but she did then. This entire world was new and strange to her and the idea of London seemed a secondary notion to her behind the strangeness of New York, Washington DC and, heaven help her, Los Angeles. Much like seeing her own family, she needed to be brave and go to London, wander its streets again, relearn the city of her birth and what it made of itself after the war.

Juan chattered to her the entire way of the costumes he was making, apparently for a new show starting in the fall, only stopping when they got to a sign that proclaimed itself as “The Boar and Stag,” beaming proudly as he held open the door. “I swear it smells like a pub in England.”

In fairness, he wasn’t wrong, if you meant that it smelled heavily of fried foods and spilled ale. Other than that, the resemblance wasn’t as strong as one might think. It was of course done up in the sort of dark woods and low lighting that characterized many a public house in Britain, but therein the similarities ended. The large screen televisions covered in seemingly endless games of football were completely modern and felt very American, as did the walls covered in advertisements for any and all European beers they could get their hands on.

They settled in a booth, a young woman in a very tight t-shirt with the establishment's name emblazoned across the front of it passing them plastic covered menus. “What can I get you?”

“Do you have any porters?” Peggy was less than hopeful, but felt worth the asking.

To her surprise, the woman smiled brightly. “We do. Would you like a pint or larger?”

They had larger than a pint? “A pint will do?”

“And you, sir?”

Juan had zeroed in on what he wanted. “I’ll take your wheat beer and fish and chips, stat!”

“Of course, anything else?”

“No,” they chorused as she nodded, taking their menus.

“I’ll get that in for you,” she assured, cheerfully, wandering off to leave them with the football on the screen across from them. That was another difference between her time and this, just how powerful and how wealthy sports in all their forms had become. She had known, of course, that the boys had all been mad about baseball and boxing, but now it was so many other sports. The idea that football of all things would be so outrageously popular all over the world...save for here in America where apparently they had their own version that Peggy had never paid attention to.

“You a big fan?” Juan observed her studying the screen and she shook her head, chuckling at his assumption.

“No, not especially. My brother liked it well enough, but he was more a rugby man from his school days.”

“It’s the one thing Lolo and me could agree on. We spent so much time watching matches.” His smile was full of fond and exasperated wistfulness. “Family, right? Sometimes they make you crazy.”

“Yes,” she murmured as their server returned with their drinks, cold as Peggy predicted, but she put up with it as she pulled it closer. “Are you close to yours?”

He gave the sort of half-shrug, half-wince that indicated that he was somewhere in the middle. “Yeah, I guess. I was raised mostly with Lala and Lolo, my grandparents. My mom was in and out of jail for a bit, had a real rough time. She got straight and sober, though, but it was some religious program she used, so having a gay son was I guess God’s punishment to her for being a drug addict or something.”

He said it with all the casualness of discussing a particularly bothersome person at work, but there was something undeniably painful there despite his perpetually light and fun-loving manner. “Did she just abandon you?”

“Abandon, no, I sort of wish she had. She tried to pray the gay away for a while, but I ran away and stayed with my grandparents and Lala told her if she couldn’t stop being an idiot she couldn’t have her son back, so I stayed with my grandma. Seriously, my abuela is an angel if you met her. Mean as hell if you cross her, but mostly just the kindest person. She made sure I was fed and taken care of and that I saw all my cousins, so I had a good family life despite it all. Lolo wasn’t so sure of my sexuality, I think, but he used his pension to help pay for design school, which I suppose means he cared.”

The vagaries of sexuality and how much more open and discussed it was in this modern world still left Peggy feeling a bit off her foot, unsure of how to proceed. “Have you spoken to your mother since?”

“Christmas and birthdays, mostly because she’s at Lala’s and we have to put up with each other. I keep expecting her to bust out holy water or something, sprinkle me with it, but she usually behaves herself in front of Lala. All I’m saying is that’s a lot of talk coming from a woman who spent twenty years in and out of prison because of heroin and crack cocaine, but what do I know?”

Whether he knew it or not, Juan had put her own family angst into perspective considerably. “I suppose families are a chore whatever situation you are in.”

“Right? At least you and Sharon get along! How is she doing? She sent me a message last week but I’ve not chatted.”

“She’s fine. Busy with work.” She ran a finger along the rim of the pint, skimming the foam there. “I am supposed to be going over the weekend to see the family, myself. It is the first time I’ve seen them in quite a few years.”

“Really? Wow, I thought you and Sharon seemed super close.”

“We have come to be,” she tactfully clarified, dancing around the truth. “Especially recently, but I’ve not seen the rest since we were all a bit younger.”

“So this is one of those awkward family reunion type of moments. I know those!”

“I’m sure you do,” she chuckled, thinking of his own familiar anecdote. “I’m debating on how to best proceed with it. Obviously, I have to face them sometime, but...there is a lot of baggage with that family history.”

“Isn’t there always? Seriously if you don’t have baggage from your family, then they aren’t doing it right.”

A cynical, but perhaps a realistic viewpoint on it all. “Does Julio have the same sort of baggage you do?”

“He’s got his own, I guess, but nah. He grew up in the most white-bread, middle-class family you can get for a Latinx kid. His mother is a doctor, his father is a lawyer, his older sister is a surgeon, and his younger brother is a teacher in an inner-city school. Like, he’s the black-sheep of the family working in city government. When he came out as gay, his sister was like ‘It’s about time you figured it out’ and then said everyone was waiting for him to catch on to it and they moved on like it was nothing. When he told me that I was like ‘seriously, no one said a thing?’ His mother loves me, though, she’s adopted me.”

“That’s good,” Peggy chuckled, thinking of her many friends whose in-laws were not so wonderful and understanding. “I don’t know what my family will be like. I wasn’t particularly in close contact with them before I...started working for SHIELD and I’m afraid I let my work rather get in the way of it.”

“I understand, it’s easy to do. But, you know, if they are like Sharon, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Hmmm,” she sipped from her beer, dark, bitter, tasting faintly of chocolate. It wasn’t horrible, she realized, and it made that longing she was feeling ache just a little more, the memory of home.

“How is it?” Juan eyed her drink with the sort of mild curiosity one might do a slug on a plate.

“Tastes not entirely dissimilar to what I remember. Perhaps a bit more...chocolate?” She hadn’t remembered that flavor. “It reminds me of stuff my father would sneak me when I was little when he thought my mother wouldn’t find out.”

“Did she ever?”

“No,” Peggy laughed, before reconsidering. “Well, maybe, my father was always dragging me off to something she deemed unladylike but she rarely stopped him.”

“Oh, she was one of those British moms, with the pinky sticking out and everything.”

“Oh, very much so.” Amanda Carter had grown up in the fading glory of the old empire. She’d learned how to curtsy and drink tea and walk straight and all the other horrible things they made girls do in the early 20th century. “My grandfather on that side was a vicar, a rather boring man from what I understand, and her marrying a man in law was something of a disappointment to my grandmother who had hoped for at least a landed gentleman or wealthy businessman, if not a lesser aristocrat.”

That caused Juan to choke on his beer, eyes streaming at the notion. “That’s some straight up Jane Austen shit right there! You can’t be serious!”

“As a heartbeat, they always despaired of me. I was always off climbing trees and chasing my brother only to try and beat him up. I suppose I was the black sheep of the family, you could say. I do, at least, know how to hold a proper cup of tea.”

“Well, if you have to have life skills,” Juan teased as the waitress returned with his giant plate of fish and chips with a side of almost neon bright, green peas that looked so shocking against the white and golden colors on the plate as to seem unreal. “Oh, yeah, help yourself, I will not eat all of this.”

Peggy experimentally snagged a chip to nibble. It wasn’t very different from any other American fry to be honest, and she finished it to be polite, but decided to stick to her porter. Juan ignored her as he savored a perfectly golden chip with salt and vinegar. 

“Fat and potato is my idea of heaven!” He sighed happily, picking up another. “So, you are the black sheep and now you are here in America and trying to figure out how to approach all of them after you’ve been ghosting them for a while. Is that your problem?”

He sussed it out succinctly enough, she supposed. “I’m supposed to be meeting the American family and it has been some time. I don’t know how well it will go and that worries me.”

“Sounds like every family reunion I have.”

“It doesn’t stop you from going?”

“No,” he shrugged, chewing thoughtfully. “No, I mean, everyone’s family is different. I got some friends whose families are the worst, straight up toxic, and I told them they need to get the hell out. But being alone isn’t good either. Family is what you make it, but you got to make the effort to make it.”

Long ago, or perhaps not, Mr. Jarvis had said something similar, chiding her for trying to take the weight of the world on alone. “Sometimes it’s just easier to be by yourself.”

“You can think that, but then you wouldn’t be sitting in a pub with me on a Wednesday afternoon drinking beer, now would you?”

She could only laugh as she supposed he had a good point. “If you want to call this a pub, that is.”

He rolled his eyes, chewing around breaded fish. “I know, I know, it’s not a London pub, no ‘blimey’ or ‘govanah’ or ‘bobs your uncle’.”

His affected accent made her cringe. “Why can Americans never sound British?”

Juan was far from sorry about how horrible it sounded. “Why can’t Brits sound American?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Peggy replied smoothly, pulling up a Brooklyn accent from that part of her that had spent too many nights sleeping rough in the wilds of Central Europe listening to Steve and Barnes trade stories and insults with one another. “I think I do all right when it comes to accents, on account of working for an organization that makes me use them every so often.”

The fish on Juan’s fork fell to the plate with a soft plop, his mouth agape and eyes wide. Peggy smiled widely in satisfaction, sipping from her drink, which was now becoming an acceptable temperature for porter consumption. When he finally pulled himself together, he shook himself, closing his mouth with a snap. “You know, I have actresses who don’t pull that off so good as that. How did you do that?”

She shrugged. “Spy secret, if I tell you, I’d have to kill you.”

“Really?”

“No, I was a gifted mimic in school and always had an ear. It’s how I managed to make off with my headmaster’s best alcohol and a pair of his wife’s knickers.”

“Wait, what?”

“Finish your lunch, Juan, and I will tell you a story of my misspent youth.”


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy meets her family.

Peggy had done many strange, insane, and dangerous things in her youth. None of them terrified her as much as this moment did. She clutched her purse and the plastic bag containing potato salad tightly, willing herself to breath.

‘You know they don’t bite.” Sharon eyed her as if she were afraid Peggy might vomit on her mother’s doormat.

“Your father is related to me, I wouldn’t put it past him.” Peggy tried to relax her grip, but found she couldn’t.

“Fair point, though I think Maggie is the biter of the pair of them.” Sharon’s long, blonde hair was pulled in a ponytail that whipped around as she pulled open the screen and opened the front door. A blast of cool air and voices sounded from the dimness of the house, a respite from the muggy stickiness of summer in Virginia. “Hey, everybody!”

“Aunt Sharon!” There were twin shrieks as a pair of blurs ran to attach themselves to Sharon’s middle, babbling over her laughter as she tried to maneuver into the door.

“Who are these monsters attacking me? Help, help!”

One of the shriekers protested in mild indignation, glaring up at her aunt but refusing to let go. "We not monsters!"

“No monsters,” said the other, a boy with a riot of dark curls, about the same age as the girl with her ash blonde hair.

“Why am I being attacked?”

“We love you,” they chorused, unapologetic as she growled and swooped down to begin tickling them. Peggy, who was standing in the doorway still, couldn’t help but feel a bit foolish, holding on to a bag of salads.

“Sonny, Mandy, what did I tell you about attacking Aunt Sharon?”

Both children immediately let go as a middle aged woman, blonde like Sharon, shooed them away with a dish towel and a mildly harried expression. “They’ve been like this all morning, nearly bowled Ashley over when she walked in the door.”

“They need to run in the yard with Cody!”

“They have and Cody is exhausted. He’s hiding our bedroom. I didn’t think you could wear a Golden Retriever out.” The woman paused, turning to Peggy with a welcoming, if apologetic, smile. “You’re the famous Peggy.”

“I don’t know about that,” Peggy instantly demurred, guessing this must be Sharon’s mother. She was of a height with her daughter and a similar build, if perhaps a tad matronly, looking comfortable in her capri slacks and a dark blue t-shirt. Peggy inanely held up the plastic bag. “Errr, we brought potato salad?”

“The good kind too, from that one deli in town Dad likes so much.”

Her mother chuckled, taking the bag before wrapping Peggy up in a warm hug. “It’s so good to finally meet you! I mean, I’ve heard all the stories, obviously, but to have you here! I won’t deny, it was...a strange story, but you’re here now, so come on in! I’m Cynthia, by the way.”

“Hello, Cynthia.” Peggy tried to plaster her most friendly smile on, still unused to the openness and physicality of modern greetings. It felt like everyone was hugging, hand shaking, throwing formality to the wind in a way she herself wasn’t as accustomed to.

“I will apologize, the grandchildren are running around. You met Sonny and Mandy, the terrors.” Cynthia shook her head, leading them through a spacious, cool living room full of soft chairs and framed photographs to a bright and inviting kitchen. She had a bit of a drawl, the sort one heard in the south, not as pronounced as the deep south, but perhaps marking her as more native to Virginia than Peggy clearly was.

“Sonny and Mandy are my brother Mike’s oldest two, but his wife has a daughter from her first marriage, Kayla. They also have a new one, Liza.”

“And she’s toddling, Wait till you see!” Cynthia waved to a deck leading out to a gracious back yard, emerald green and lush, covered in lovely gardens and people...ones Peggy was somehow related to.”

“She was just scooting at Easter,” Sharon opined, snagging a carrot stick from a tray on a marble counter laid out with all manner of food. Peggy found she couldn’t have snacked on it if she wanted to, nerves twisting at her gut as she studied the collective outside through the elegant French doors.

“Well, someone has to keep up with the twins! Brody is trying to keep up with his cousins, but he’s still too little to manage. I’ve got Kayla on babysitting duty with all of them. She’s old enough now to learn how to corral them.”

The vagaries of the family discussion were lost on Peggy, save she assumed it was about Sharon’s nieces and nephews. She glanced out of the French doors that led from a spacious and open dining area to a patio filled with people, faces she knew from Sharon’s phone pictures, all of them strangers to her and yet all of them family. They all chatted, laughed, one of the young women held a baby on her lap, perhaps the one who was now walking, Liza. They seemed very modern, very relaxed, very normal.

“You can go out there if you want,” Cynthia called, catching Peggy’s attention back around. “No one bites.”

Sharon had said the same exact thing walking in the door. “I was admiring your garden.” It was a diversion, a momentary reprieve from having to face the music, and she could tell by the instant light in Cynthia’s eyes that it worked.

“Thank you! It’s what keeps me busy in the summer months when school is out, puttering around back there.” She came beside Peggy to survey the wide expanse of emerald green lined with beds of roses and other blooms. “Harry says I stay out of trouble that way.”

“Look who's talking,” Sharon snorted, leaning lazily against the island.

“My mother used to have a lovely garden like this.” If Peggy closed her eyes she could still remember it, the riot of blossoms, lovingly tended. Amanda Carter had tried to snag Peggy into the chore, but she had always much preferred digging in the mud to planting anything in it. “My father, Harry’s namesake, he used to say the same thing, that it kept her out of trouble.”

Cynthia’s smile softened, clearly pleased by that. “I never knew her. She passed before Harry and I met, but he spoke fondly of her. You must miss her.”

Surprisingly, Peggy did. “More than I believed I could.”

Sharon blessedly cut in with a segue to shift the mood. “Speaking of staying out of trouble, has Dad finished his book?”

“Off at the publishers right now, thank God, his study was making me crazy. You know how he is when he’s writing, books and papers everywhere, and I can’t touch a thing else I lose some important footnote he was saving right there in the middle of everything.”

That reminded Peggy more of her own father. There had been a constant refrain in the house growing up, Mrs. Jenkins and her mother desiring to clean their father’s mess and his desire to keep them out of his study all together. His office had been a clutter of files, law briefs, stacks of leather bound law books and case precedents, newspapers and crumpled bits of scratch paper. Peggy had loved it and despaired of it in equal measure, both because of the fastidious nature of her own existence and the comfort she had in her father’s absent-minded organization.

Why did it pang her so much now and not when Scott Lang stood in her tidy flat sixty years ago?

“You ready to face them?” Sharon was at her elbow, a bottle of water in her hands, an empathetic expression in her eyes.

“If I faced Chester Phillips in a full on temper, I can handle this, right?”

“That’s the spirit! Come on.” Sharon cheerfully opened the door to the outside where they all gathered. “Hey, gang!”

There was cheer and good will as people hugged Sharon and exclaimed at seeing her. Peggy followed behind, holding her breath. One-by-one they all turned to regard her, standing there in her summer dress and practical wedges, feeling decidedly out of place among all the denim, shorts, t-shirts and skimpy tops. She gauged the room, as it were, and could almost tell the ones she was related to and the ones she wasn’t. The in-laws all eyed her with open curiosity, a new person in their close knit group, but the relatives stared at her as if she were a ghost who stepped out of some black-and-white, sepia photo.

“My god!” One young man, tall and lean, with Sharon’s blonde hair and his mother’s looks - she thought he was William - pulled off his sunglasses to gape at her, mouth open like a fish. “You look just like your pictures.”

Sharon, who had judged what had brought her family to a dead stop, landed a well-aimed and perfectly powered punch to her brother’s shoulder. “What else do you think, stupid! Of course she looks like her picture.”

“Ow,” he howled, rubbing the spot with injured irritation. “Hey, that hurt!”

“It was supposed to!”

“You two sound like the twins.” Another young man, dark haired and solid, Mikey she guessed, rounded them and ignored his other siblings' antics. “Aunt Peggy?”

Peggy released her breath shakily, nodding her head. “Yes...um..yes, that is me. You are Mikey, correct?”

“Got it in one!” He held out a hand that she took, politely, before he dragged her to him, much as Cynthia had, in a bear of a hug. “Oh my God, it’s amazing to meet you! Do you know how many stories I heard of you?”

She was soon passed around, greeted by the boys’ wives, introduced to Sharon’s sister Ashley and a boyfriend who looked about as shy and out of place as Peggy felt, and finally she came to stand before the two people she had worried the most about meeting. Her niece and nephew. She’d only have recognized them as such because of Sharon. Harry looked nothing like the dark-haired, excited youth in short pants that her memory conjured. Maggie had been little more than a babe in arms and now was a woman aging gracefully in her sixties, with wings of silver in her dark hair. They both stared at her as she likely did at them, trying to reconcile the image of decades with what they saw now. For them, it was trying to make their mind fit around the idea that their aunt had seemingly not aged a day.

“Hullo, Harry,” Peggy murmured, staring into the older man’s eyes.

“Hullo, Aunt Peg.” A hint of the Northern drawl he had as a boy peeked out, but most of his accent was clearly gone now. “Is it really you?”

“As far as I can tell,” she chuckled, acutely aware that the entire group was watching. “Some days I have to wonder if I woke up in fairy land.”

Beside him, his sister voiced the question they were all likely asking. “How?”

For that, Peggy wished she had a far better answer than she really did.

“Experiment,” Sharon had materialized at her elbow, that hint of a sharp look reminding her. They had discussed it on the way over to her parents’ house, the excuse they were going to give, as a man showing up with a time travel watch did sound rather mad.

“Right,” Peggy picked up the subtle cue, spinning the yarn wholecloth. “I was out on a mission, a secret one, and...something happened. I don’t know, I blacked out and when I came to, here I was. The best any of us could tell was it was HYDRA experiments.”

“Amazed she was even found,” Sharon put in, threading an arm around Peggy’s. “You can’t imagine how shocked I was when the director gave me the call.”

“Or how I was when I learned when I was and that I had a niece.” The story and half truths spilled out smoothly, far more so than they had any right to do. She only felt mildly guilty at employing her skill set on her own family, but there it was. Wide eyed, they all stared, most particularly her brother’s children.

“You just...woke up?” Harry sounded equal parts astounded and incredulous. Frankly, Peggy couldn’t blame him, and she found herself struggling to find words to even explain the utter strangeness of all of this.

“I’ve had something of a mad journey, Harry,” she murmured, finding her water bottle rather interesting. “I...it hasn’t been easy, but here I am.”

There was quiet for long moments. It was Maggie who broke it, hustling over to take Peggy’s hand, grinning widely. “Dad always hoped that you were out there, somewhere, maybe just lost or confused. Who would have imagined something like this? What happened?”

“Best that anyone could tell, rudimentary cryogenics,” Sharon had jumped into the fray, her two brothers hanging on every word. “Who knew back in the 1940s, but there you are! It was an accident anyone found her and I still don’t know the particulars.”

“What were you doing over there?” Mikey, the eldest of the brood and technically older than Peggy in years, stared at her as if he were a child at her knee begging for a story.

Peggy demurred a bit. “Much of it is classified, you know, but we had a tip on activity in what was Russian occupied East Germany and...I got in over my head.”

“And still lived to tell the tale!”

“Something like that.”

Much to Peggy’s everlasting relief, and Cynthia Carter’s clear saintliness, their mother intervened. “Enough, already, let the poor woman catch a breath. Mike, I need you on the grill, Will and Sharon if you aren’t doing anything better with yourselves I need help in the kitchen. Ashley, could you help Kayla and make sure the twins aren’t tearing up the den?”

Cynthia would have had a wonderful career as a field general. Her brood deployed and their significant others went with them. Even Maggie’s husband, a tall, handsome man named Darren, moved to follow his nephew to the grill muttering something about not setting the house on fire. That left Peggy alone with Michael’s children for the first time in six decades.

Unsurprisingly, given what she had seen of them now, Maggie was the one who broke the uncomfortable silence. “So...how has it been...adjusting?”

“Maddening.” Peggy chuffed a laugh, perching on a nearby vacated deck chair primly, rolling the bottle of water nervously in her bloodless fingers. “It was confusing, terrifying, so loud...so busy. But I’ve managed alright. Sharon has been...so invaluable. She’s held my hand through most of it. I’ve had to learn everything, from history to emails.”

“I wouldn’t bother with Facebook, that’s a nightmare,” Maggie laughed, still staring at Peggy as if she were a vision and not flesh and blood. “They looked for you for so long.”

“I doubt they would have ever found me.” The aching truth of it was real enough, even if the story was not.

“But someone did! You poor thing! You’re here now, though, and we are here.” With the sort of unguarded acceptance the rest of the family seemed to have, she threw arms around Peggy. “We are family! You are home.”

Those words, so earnestly meant, hit Peggy with a force that shocked her, tears brimming to the surface. “I...it’s been a while since I could say any of that.”

Harry, who said remarkably little, watched the display quietly. It was only when Maggie had pulled away, also wiping at tears, that he finally vocalized anything. “Why?”

The simple question, so quietly uttered, had the effect of freezing both of them. Maggie turned on her brother in shock, Peggy in confusion. It was Maggie who spoke first, no hint of a British accent at all in her voice, but sounding just like Peggy’s mother all the same. “Harrison? She’s our aunt, why else wouldn’t we…”

“That’s not what I meant,” he shot back, his gaze never leaving Peggy. “Why did you go out on your own?”

Ahh...that.

“It was dangerous,” she replied automatically, her standard fall back line with Mr. Jarvis. It hadn’t worked on him then and she could see it wasn’t working on Young Harry now.

“Dangerous? Clearly, you disappeared for decades! We thought you were dead. Our father….your parents...all your friends. You just send a note and a hurried goodbye and swan off and expect us to all be okay with that?”

“Harry,” Maggie began, but he held up a hand to cut his sister off.

“Dad spent years, decades looking for you. Moved the entire family to find you. No trace, not a whisper. Gran was inconsolable, Grandfather brokenhearted, and Dad blamed himself for pushing you into all of this in the first place. Least you could have done was told someone, anyone where you were going? And it turns out you were stuck in a basement in Berlin for decades? They thought you were dead, tortured or worse, executed in some nameless field. Every ghost or whisper of a body of a dark haired woman found, Dad was following up on it hoping against hope it was you.”

Sharon hadn’t told her any of this.

“I…” Peggy didn’t know what to say. She knew that few and far between were those who believed Howard’s story, but she had assumed from what she’d been told that Michael had accepted she had died and moved on. She hadn’t thought that he and Daniel would still search for her, thinking that the next lead would turn up her body somewhere in the wilds of some back country somewhere.

“Harrison!” His name on his sister’s lips was harsh and accusatory. “Do you really think that now is the time?”

“Sixty years, Maggie? When is a good time?” He glared at them both before turning to stalk off the deck in the direction of the built in grill off to the side where his son and brother-in-law were starting the food for the day. Peggy watched him go, feeling a bit sick at it all. He wasn’t wrong, not at all. She hadn’t really thought about any of them that night, not once.

“I’m so sorry for that, Aunt Peggy,” Maggie murmured in vague mortification. “I...don’t even know where that came from!”

“I do,” she sighed, watching him before turning to her niece. “And perhaps ‘Peggy’ is alright to call me. After all, I’m physically young enough to be your daughter.”

Maggie paused at that, taking a moment to soak that in. “I suppose you are. I don’t know, I don’t remember you quite like Harry does. It has to be really confusing for him.”

“As it would be for anyone.” Peggy was beginning to wonder if any of this was a good idea. “I hadn’t meant to intrude or cause difficulty. I know Sharon…”

“Wanted to see the family together.” Maggie waved it off, settling back in the chair she had claimed, glancing towards the kitchen where her other nieces and nephews all were. “Sharon’s admired you since she was little. She wanted to be just like you, over her father’s strenuous objections, you should know.”

Sharon hadn’t mentioned that. “She said she grew up with stories about me.”

“They all did! Aunt Peggy was a favorite story for the cousins. I told them to my kids, too.” She smiled fondly at the memory. “Harry...it’s complicated. He remembers when you disappeared. He remembers leaving England and home and coming here, He remembers our parents' arguments, Mum telling Dad to let you go. I was younger, so I missed out on most of that, honestly.”

“And it couldn’t help that Sharon sprung this all on you, this insane...crazy...unbelievable story after all these years.”

“I won’t lie, when she did bring it up we didn’t believe her." Maggie grinned, a smile that looked very much like Peggy's own. "Even when she whipped out her phone and showed us pictures it was hard to believe, even with the evidence right in front of us. All these years of searching and there you were in New York, still young, still alive, well after Dad and everyone who had searched for you was dead. It hurt.”

“Yes, it did.” She had felt it on her end, that awful knowledge of what her decisions had cost her. “For what it’s worth, it hurts now, knowing I never got to say goodbye to any of them...Mother, Father, Michael...no one, really. I had run off, impulsive as ever, thinking I could manage everything and finding out only later it was so much bigger and more meaningful than I had expected.”

“I suppose heroes have that tendency.” Maggie’s reply was sad, but her expression was understanding. “Sort of the habit you get. You are so busy trying to handle a crisis or mystery, to save the world, that you forget the rest of us and all the repercussions. That’s why Harry worries about Sharon. He knows better than anyone how easy it is to forget those you love and how hard it is to justify it when the world is in peril.”

“I don’t know about a hero,” Peggy chuffed, rolling the water bottle again in her hand. A hero was something Steve was, not her. “I would hardly call myself one of those.”

“Daddy called you that,” Maggie supplied, firmly. “Harry does too, when he’s not being an idiot. Your nieces and nephews all do.”

“I’m afraid you will find I’m just a headstrong, stubborn, temperamental, very flawed human being underneath it all. Hardly the stuff of legends.”

“I don’t know, Dad had a lot of stories about you being that too, so don’t worry. I know about the frogs at tea incident.”

It took Peggy a long few moments to piece together what that was about. “Was that when I hid frogs under the teacups at the ladies social? I’d forgotten that.” She laughed, pulling the memory from the depths of somewhere. “I was what...seven or so, and very unhappy to have to be attending one of my mother’s functions in a dress and not allowed to run and play.”

“See, no hero is perfect.”

Like Sharon, Maggie was very matter-of-fact about these things, a sensibility that was more Michael’s wife than him. “Don’t put me up on too high of a pedestal, Maggie. Believe me, I don’t need to be up there and don’t want to be.”

“I know.” She glanced at her brother in the distance. “He doesn’t, however. It will take him time. Just...be patient with him. The rest of the family is happy and he is too, but it does take some...getting used to.”

“Tell me about it,” Peggy sighed, considering the last six months. “I don’t expect it to be easy, and perhaps he won’t be okay with it, I just don’t want this to become a friction point between him and Sharon.”

“He and Sharon will work it out, they always do, even if Harry doesn’t always like Sharon’s choices. She takes a lot after you, and I think he realizes just how futile it is to argue at this point.”

Perhaps therein lay much of Harry’s anxiety, Peggy realized, the fear of Sharon turning out too much like her aunt and what that would mean for his daughter. Considering Peggy’s life to this point, it wasn’t wholly invalid as a fear, either. Being an agent of SHIELD meant that strange things happened to you on a regular basis, much of which you couldn’t talk about. How many nights must he have lain awake wondering if she would be safe in her chosen profession? Would he get a phone call one day saying she was missing, presumed dead? Were those the thoughts her parents had when she had boarded a ship to America as a fresh-faced SOE agent, before the idea of supersoldiers was even a conscious thought for her?

Much as she hated to admit it, those thoughts niggled at her throughout the rest of the afternoon and evening, subduing the already overwrought feelings of the family affair. If the various other nieces and nephews noticed, they cheerfully ignored it, tucking into barbecued meats and various salads as they explained their lives and families and begged for stories of her misspent youth. Through it all, Harry listened but said little, clearly removed from the boisterous good nature of it all. He was no longer the wide-eyed boy in short-pants who had once charmed her so. He hadn’t been for a long time.

They left as twilight came on and Sharon’s eldest brother began to pack up his brood to go, much to the relief of the lovely Golden Retriever, Cody. Sharon stayed long enough to give hugs and kisses all around, including to the rambunctious twins. Peggy stood to the side, uncertain as goodbyes were made all around. It was Cynthia, the steady, unflustered presence near here, who reached an arm around her.

“I know this is the strangest thing I’ve ever heard of and it’s a wonder you are even here, but I’m glad you are. Come back any time. We are your family! Don’t be a stranger!”

Peggy allowed the tight embrace, hiding her tears as she moved in the growing gloom to Sharon’s car. Her niece was cheerfully quiet as she started the engine for the long drive back to Georgetown. Peggy watched the darkened steadily dimming landscape as they made their way back towards the city and lights.

“You survived!” Sharon was proding ever so gently.

“Mmmm, yes.” Not easily, but she had. “It won’t be easy.”

“No,” Sharon replied. “Family never is. It is how connections work, I guess.”

It was no easier now than it had been 60 years ago.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy takes some decisive steps.

A woman with superhuman strength, a brilliant scientist who had his own experiment turn on himself in a horrible fashion, a former test pilot, a top-notch surgeon, a mercenary soldier of fortune, Peggy found them all in Fury’s list, along with many others. Some had mundane abilities but a sheer force of personality that was formidable, while others had shady pasts that they might want to get rid of for the right incentive. There were those who had abilities that were mysterious and unexplained, and scientists and engineers who could do things in labs that Peggy wasn’t even aware could be done. The list had thousands of names, more than she could hope to go through herself, ever.

“I need a department,” she told Maria Hill frankly. The other woman paused at her desk in Washington, shooting Peggy a look that said she found it either amusing or hopelessly cute.

“For Fury’s initiative?”

“Yes,” Peggy replied, respectful but unafraid of Fury’s formidable right hand. “If anything, the Stark case taught me that I work best in this new century with a team of those who have their head on straight and help me do what I need to do. What Fury wants is a team of superheroes, ready at a moment's notice. What I need to facilitate that is a team of people willing to not only bring them together but optimize them to their full potential.”

“You need a team for the team?” Hill still wasn’t convinced.

“Yes...I need people willing to help analyze targets for our invitation.”

Hill didn’t look pleased. “Did you have anyone in mind?”

Peggy immediately thought of Sharon and paused. Her niece had her own career in Washington, one that allowed her to be close to her family. It would be selfish to pull her out of that. Harry was already angry with Peggy and he’d not thank her for taking off with his daughter to New York and likely leading her down the same path Peggy took. Better to allow her to decide how involved she wanted to be.

“There is an agent up here, you had her help me requisition my apartment, Agent Cassandra Kam.”

“She does good work where she’s at.”

“She’s interested in branching out. I’m interested in her contextual thinking. She does good work and she should be given a chance if she wants it.”

Hill grimaced, clearly not liking the idea. “Do you have any idea how hard it is finding someone who knows their way around New York City zoning and rental law, let alone how to build a top secret office in the middle of one of the most highly trafficked areas in the world?”

“Which is why I want her. Her skill set is equally good at finding talent and addressing needs. What’s more, she was invaluable in helping us in the search for Stark. She is good and she doesn’t want to have to pick out floor tile for shoeboxes forever.”

To Hills credit, she seemed to know and understand this, even if she didn’t like it. “Alright, you want Kam. Anyone else?”

Peggy didn’t know many others in SHIELD outside of those she had pulled into the Stark investigation. “Agent Burk and his team were useful, but I understand their talents are more widely used in the agency. I’d like to have them on call, though, sort of my permanent go to if I need for their expertise in terms of communications and technology.”

“That can be arranged.”

Her next request she knew would be huge and knew would likely be denied. “I’m not saying I want them permanently, but I do want access to them if needed...I’d like to be able to use Barton and Romanoff if the situation warrants and they are free.”

That gave Hill pause. “You want a STRIKE team?”

Peggy didn’t flinch. “We are talking about dealing with people who are gifted with abilities far above those of the average human being. We can’t approach them straight on and we sometimes have to plan for every contingency. Barton and Romanoff are operatives who can do that and also handle situations that need to be managed should they get to be problematic.”

Hill at least didn’t laugh in her face. “That would be a Fury level ask. I’d have to clear it with him.”

“I’m all right with that.” Fury had put her on this, after all, he could invest something in it if he wanted it so bad.

“You know there are other really good operatives outside of those two.”

“I am sure there are, but those are the two I am asking for.”

Hill didn’t like it, but didn’t argue. “I’ll see what Fury says. Anything else while you are asking for the farm?”

“Yes,” Peggy nodded, bracing herself for this ask. “I need everything you have on the case of Daniel Sousa.”

Whatever Hill had been expecting, it hadn’t been that. “Wait...Chief Sousa?”

“Did you have more than one Sousa around here?”

Hill colored slightly, a rare faux paux on her part. “No, just...well…” She paused, clearly considering her words. “I thought Agent Carter’s requested a file for you months ago.”

“She did.” Peggy had finally got the gumption enough to look it over before visiting her family. It had contained no more than what Coulson had told her, that Daniel had been on a case, that he had disappeared, and no trace of him had been found. “But I want the actual case file, the work that was done on it. That wasn’t included in what was released to Sharon.”

HIll shrugged, making a note to herself. “I’ll see what we can dig up in our copies. Coulson has been fanboying again, hasn’t he?”

“Fanboying?” It wasn’t a term Peggy was familiar with, though she could more or less guess what it meant.

Hill’s eye roll was affectionate. “Coulson has always been a fan of SHIELD history. I did tell you about his Captain America collector cards.”

She had mentioned it once, but it made Peggy smile all the same, no less for Coulson’s enthusiasm as for the utter embarrassment Steve had felt at the idea. “And so he is a...fan of Chief Sousa in all this?”

“Sousa’s disappearance was the second biggest unsolved case after your own. No one could find him. Finally, Howard Stark closed it on the sheer fact that he couldn’t afford the manpower to keep it going. Either Sousa was taken by Russians or he disappeared the same way you did.” Hill was thoughtful as she said it, arching an eyebrow via the video conference call. “Do you think…”

“I don’t know,” Peggy admitted. “Perhaps. How...why, I don’t know. The person who came to get me, Lang...he didn’t make it to this year with me. Maybe something happened, maybe he went back trying to find me and found Daniel instead and dragged him forward to look for me. Maybe it is something else and there are more people who have invented time travel who have made off with him. Maybe he really just was kidnapped by Russian operatives and died somewhere. I would rather think it wasn’t that.”

Hill for her part was sympathetic. “I get it. I’ll see what I can find out.”

“Thank you.” It was a small ask compared to her others. Peggy knew she had already pressed for a lot out of the other woman, but she had been dying to ask. “One last thing, do you know if any search teams have been sent to the Arctic yet?”

It wasn’t subtle and she hadn’t wanted to be. Hill only just suppressed a grin. “We have people up there looking out. That’s all we can do at the moment. I put a call out through channels to anyone fishing up in those waters and as soon as we turn up something, I promise you will be the second call I make.”

“The first call will be to Fury, I am guessing,” Peggy asked dryly.

“Always, but that’s more so we can mobilize teams up there. When we find something, I’ll get you packed on a quinjet to Greenland or Canada or wherever.”

Peggy hoped desperately it would be soon, this season. Decades...Steve had been asleep for decades now, hidden somewhere in the ice. She didn’t even know what condition he would be found in. Scott Lang seemed to indicate he was fine, but had he been found that way? Had he still been hurt from his ordeal and left to spend months rehabilitating before he was able to awake. Pushing aside the dull ache that thought created, she ruefully wondered how her life and everyone she knew seemed to be pulled into the strange peculiarities of time and the travel in it.

“Right, I think that’s my Christmas list for now.” Peggy cleared her throat against the burn of mingled hope and grief. “If I have a team to help me, my hope is to have proposals to Fury by mid-summer and a plan to move forward on his initiative.”

“If it gets funded.” Hill didn’t sound as if she was hopeful on that score.

“True,” Peggy admitted, knowing all too well how budgets and bureaucracy worked, even in SHIELD. “But if it is, we will be set by the fall to start pulling in those we want to potentially recruit.”

“Any stand outs yet?”

Peggy eyed the spreadsheets on her own screen. “Honestly...it’s a bit too overwhelming. I don’t know yet.”

“And what about Stark?”

The continued silence from the man had not gone unmarked, especially by Fury. “He’s yet to come out of hiding in Malibu, and considering it’s only been a couple of months, I’m not surprised. When he is ready to talk, he will, and perhaps we can understand better what is going on. Till then, I heard from Coulson that Romanoff is perfecting her cover in Los Angeles and will be joining the company in a matter of weeks.”

Hill looked somewhat jealous. “Not going to lie, the employee benefits package at Stark is enough to make me rethink my choice of career path somewhat. They have an onsite personal chef, and a bar for employee gatherings and meetings, and their own anti-stress day spa for employees as part of their work-life balance initiative.”

That sounded less like an office and more like a resort, but Peggy didn’t quibble the point. “I don’t think Romanoff is there for the benefits.”

“You underestimate the power of having an onsite massage and facial.”

This was one of those magical things that Peggy had heard modern women carry on about but had yet to ever really experience. “I’ll take your word on it. You’ll get back to me on the other things.”

“As soon as I get them. You want me to break the news to Kam?”

“I’ll go find her. Thank you in advance for the rest.”

“Wait till we see how successful I am at it before you send your thanks.”

With mutual sign offs Peggy let out the breath she had been holding. It was a giant step to demand a department just for the Avengers. Thus far, it was still only Fury’s side project, nothing had been approved in terms of official funding, even her own salary was being covered through a discretionary fund all of his own. The majority of the resources she could see were being directed towards something called “Project: Insight” which she didn’t have clearance access for, much to her disgruntlement, and a “Project: Pegasus,” a legacy of Howard’s that clearly was the the base that Coulson had been sent to after their meeting with Stark. What went on there was equally mysterious, and it irked her that Fury felt the need to be so secretive about it. That said, Coulson trusted him, and in her own way she trusted Coulson. How much of that loyalty was due to Fury’s willingness to give Coulson a shot when few others did was up for debate. Still, everyone needed someone to believe in them. She had Chet Philips. Steve had Abraham Erskine. Coulson had Fury.

Now she would give someone else her chance.

The Requisition and Property Office sat in the middle of the building and had Peggy not known better she’d have assumed it was any other real estate office. Large photographs of properties were scattered around cubicle desks covered in schematics and floor charts. Cassandra’s was along a back wall, a larger cubicle, covered in her papers, files, and a few figurines that were mysterious to Peggy but which had some sort of significance to the other woman, some sort of animated something she was rather fond of. She wandered up to find her deep in phone conversation as she flipped through something on her computer, smiling when she saw Peggy but holding up a finger to indicate she would be with her in a moment. Peggy smiled in acknowledgement and wandered to a coffee station down the way to try and find something that vaguely resembled tea and only ended up with hot water and a tea bag for something called “Lemon Zinger.”

“Hey, what’s up?” Cassandra peeked her head out of her space, clearly glad to see Peggy. It hit her that it had been since before her jaunt to Virginia since she’d seen her friend.

“I came to see you for a change. How is your current project?”

“By current you mean ‘same’. Pierce’s daughter is haggling over security features, which I can’t blame her on, considering her own experiences. She wants to make sure her kid is safe.” She eyed the paper cup in Peggy’s hand. “We could go get real tea, you know. I could use a Starbucks run.”

“No, it’s all right.” Peggy really had made it to occupy herself than to drink. She set it aside, hastily. “You mentioned to me before you were interested in perhaps a bit of a career change. Is that still true?”

Cassandra hadn’t expected that question. “I...err, yeah, sure! I mean, why? Did you have something in mind?”

“Yes,” Peggy replied “I’ve been working on a project for Director Fury. I’ve reached the point where I need help if this is to get off the ground. What I need to know is if you are interested in helping out.”

Cassandra eyed Peggy, excitement, awe, and concern all playing out at once on her solemn expression. “I mean...how classified is this?”

“Very.”

“And I will need to clear that.”

“Maria Hill is working on it, but do I have to worry?”

She shrugged, smirking. “Not really, unless you are afraid I am going to tell a contractor about your super secret project, in which case maybe I’d be worried.”

“Good. She will be in touch with the paperwork on transferring you out. I suppose you will now have to determine if you want an office on the same floor, and if so, where.”

Cassandra grinned with glee. “I’ve been eyeing a space by your office for months and no one has taken it yet. I’ll just go put that paperwork in right now.”

“The advantages of working in Requisitions.” Peggy let her smile fade to something far more stern. “You wanted a shot at something bigger, this is it. This isn’t something you signed up for. Do you feel comfortable doing this?”

“Absolutely!”

“And your boyfriend?”

Something flickered but she shrugged it off. “We talked. He said he’d stand by me no matter what I wanted. I can do this! You’ll see, you picked the right woman.”

“I am sure I have.” Peggy thought of Sharon with a pang. She would kill for a chance like this, and it would hurt her to know that Peggy chose the less experienced Cassandra Kam than her talented niece. But Harry’s anger was still too fresh, and besides the optics wouldn’t look good. If anything were to happen to her under Peggy’s supervision...no, it was far better to let Sharon find her own way.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy meets someone for their birthday.

“When this is over, what do you want to do?”

Peggy had honestly not thought terribly hard about the answer to that question. 

“I don’t know.” She shrugged, wrapping her fingers around the cup of hot water with the tea bag stuck unceremoniously in it, the closest approximation she could get to a cuppa in the wilds of Bohemia. “I suppose I’ve been too busy trying to survive to see the end of the war.”

Steve sat across from her, pensive in the dim glow of the fire, leaning against the log he had pulled up for a bench, but had foregone it to simply sit on the half-frozen ground, long legs stretched out towards the heat. She remembered not so long ago when he was so slight the bitterness of late November would have cut through him like a knife.

“What about you?” She sipped at the tepid concoction. “The world is your oyster now, when this is all done you can do anything.”

“Pity it took me having to go through a science experiment to get that, huh?” His lopsided smile was half self-deprecating, half sad commentary on his life before Abraham Erskine found him. “If I hadn’t stumbled into that recruitment office at Stark’s big expo, I’d still be the little guy getting beat up in every back alley in Brooklyn.”

“True,” she replied, matter-of-factly. “But if my brother hadn’t died, I’d have been Mrs. Fred Wells by now and we wouldn’t be here talking to each other. All of us have something else we were supposed to be. What are we going to do now?”

“Ahhh, well, that.” He had his own cup of something hot, some of Dugan’s brew, disgusting but warm. “Before the war I wanted to go into art design, maybe become a real artist, maybe go into the ad industry. I was good at it.”

“I’ve seen your work.” She nodded to the pocket she knew he kept his notebook in. “You are talented. You could go far with that.”

“Sure, but is it all that I could be doing?”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged broad shoulders, bashfully staring into the slowly lowering flames. “I don’t know, I suppose that I’ve been thinking a lot about Erskine lately, the serum, that last conversation we had together. Of all the recruits he could have given that serum to, he gave it to me, this scrawny kid who had spent most of his life in one fight or another because I couldn’t learn to keep my mouth shut or walk away. I can’t just..when I see something unfair, I have a hard time just letting it happen. I don’t do that and back then if I said something or spoke up, I’d get beat up for it. Now, I’m in a position where I can make a real difference, really take a stand and be taken seriously. I don’t just mean physically, but you know, I have a voice that people will listen to as well. Maybe I should do something with it. I don’t know, maybe when this is all over, when the army doesn’t need me anymore, I could do something else...advocate for anything else.”

Why that caught Peggy by surprise, she didn’t know. “Fight for the little guy?”

“Yeah,” he smiled, the same, lop-sided grin. “I don’t know what that will look like, but...someone has to do it, right?”

“Sure,” she affirmed, as somewhere in the distance a beeping noise sounded, faint in the distant woods, reverberating through the tall stands of ancient trees. Steve’s endearing smile pulled and changed, fading as Peggy opened her eyes to the sound of the alarm clock by her bed and the comfort of the high rise flat looking over New York in 2010 and not the cold of autumn in 1944. Her hand reached over to slap the offending noisemaker, finding the alarm button, groaning as she shifted in the pile of pillows, staring up at the ceiling. Steve’s smile, the warm, rumbling timbre of his baritone voice, the determination, the hopefulness...God, that had been so real. Real enough her heart ached as tears prickled, the memory of long ago so familiar she could almost imagine she had just been there.

She turned to the alarm clock, glowing red in the dim light, and the framed photo that she kept there. Steve as the scrawny man who kept getting into those fights, standing up to bullies, defending what he believed. She smiled, mistily, reaching for it, with the memory so fresh at hand.

“Happy birthday, darling.” She brushed a finger along the glass, sadly. Today was America’s Independence Day, one that as a proper British woman she perhaps felt somewhat conflicted over. She had dual citizenship now, thanks to one Maria Hill, but even if it wasn’t it was special in that it was Steve’s day. He would have been 92 today had he not flown into the Arctic Ocean. She tried to surmise how old he would be when they woke him up. Twenty-seven? The idea she would technically be older than he was both boggled and amused her, but she supposed it made little difference. That he wasn’t there yet bothered her more than she wanted to think on.

Setting his picture back in its most cherished place, she threw back the bedcovers and rose, seeing towards her morning routine. Despite the fact this place lacked the coziness of her old flat in 1949, she had developed a routine, a comfort in this new space with all of its luxury. She admitted to enjoying the shower perhaps a bit too much, and took her time ruminating on both her day and her life thus far in the new world she had stepped into. The whirlwind of it all often left Peggy with little time and less means to breath, to take it in, to consider where she was at and what everything had become. Since she had taken Scott Lang’s hand and stepped through the looking glass, she had been dragged between pillar and post, from one moment to the next without really thinking through where she was and how she ended up here. First it was the end of the world, then it was the Avengers, then a missing Tony Stark, with Peggy running as fast as she could to even keep ahead of it. Much like she had during the war, she hadn’t really stopped to think beyond just surviving, making it to the next moment, and had given no thought really to the future, to what came next. She’d given about as much thought to the past and what she left behind.

Scott Lang had been one of those elements she had dropped, a thread that had become lost in the whirl of her life when she landed in 2010, confused and disoriented. He had yet to appear in this time and for several weeks after Peggy worried what had really happened to him. Her search for him and been stymied in that he existed here and now, but she didn’t think the man who she found in the SHIELD database was the same one who had appeared in an alley looking for her and had eaten his body weight in pie while telling her she was needed in the future. This one was working for a company known as Vistacorp, a security systems company that SHIELD was fairly certain was bilking their customers and they had on a watch list. He was happily married, had a toddler daughter, and seemed rather oblivious to everything. Whoever he was now, he wasn’t the man who had come to find her. More than that, the Hank Pym he had referenced was a reclusive scientist who lived in San Francisco who rarely spoke to anyone, even his own board members, and relegated much of the day-to-day work of his company to his daughter, Hope, and a member of his company named Darren Cross. Neither of them seemed any more aware than Lang did and Peggy had left that thread alone. If the future Lang reappeared, presumably on January 1, 2012, she would perhaps be able to find him then. She hoped he would be safe and sound. Like so many other pieces, Peggy felt vaguely like she had left him hanging, unable to make it right, unsure what she could even do to make it better.

That thought brought to mind her nephew, depressingly, and the unresolved feelings between herself and Sharon’s father. She had mentioned very little of it to her niece, who despite it all had caught on that there was something that had not gone well on their one family gathering. Peggy had said only that it would take time, and she guessed from Sharon’s frustration that Harry was even less forthcoming about it. Despite his sister, Maggie’s, efforts to reach out to her, Harry had remained silent. Not wishing to further any animosity or hurt, Peggy had gracefully given her excuses to Sharon when asked about the long 4th of July weekend, creating reasons for busying herself with work and not feeling she could step away. It wasn’t entirely untrue, but had Sharon wished to push it, she could have torn through the flimsiest of excuses. Peggy contented herself with the fact that Sharon, at least, was still eager to be in her life, as were her siblings and Maggie. Perhaps from there she could build in roads...not that Peggy was ever particularly good with those and her own family.

She was nearly a prune by the time she finished meandering down the path her musings led her down, the bathroom so steamed it was more a sauna than a proper bath. She aired it out as she toweled off, wrapping in a fuzzy robe, a gift from Juan and Jose for her birthday, and put up her hair in a turban to dry. One joy of the modern world, and the modern hairstyle, was it took half the work her old one did. Satisfied, she puttered out of her master bath and down the hallway to the flat beyond to rummage in her kitchen for sustenance. Despite all of the fancy cooking channels she had discovered with Sharon, she had not progressed much past making a sandwich and occasionally oatmeal. Frozen food had been a lifesaver, however, and now that she could use a microwave she felt safe in attempting the process without setting her entire kitchen on fire. This morning she opted for cold cereal and tea, something of a luxury, she admitted, to her still very 1940s palette. 

Peggy had just managed to put the kettle on for tea and pour some wheat biscuits into a bowl when the phone on its charger buzzed briefly at her. She ignored it as she finished the rituals of tea and cereal, settling at the kitchen island to partake before reaching for the blasted thing. She had found to her mild disgust that despite the scant months possessing one, she was as addicted to it as any other modern person was. She had it up to her ear as she swallowed in a decidedly unladylike manner. “Carter speaking.”

“You should learn to check your caller ID before answering a phone. it’s a nifty feature we have on these things.”

Peggy didn’t need to check it to know who it was. “Force of habit, Colonel Fury. Would the number on the front even have been yours?”

He chuckled. “You know it wouldn’t. I’m surprised you haven’t figured out how to install tracers in it yet.”

“Who says I haven’t?” She made a mental note to have Agent Burk do just that. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I was in town, enjoying the holiday, thought you might like to meet me up for a hot dog and a bit of company. Prospect Park is having a community concert and barbecue. You should come.”

Prospect Park was in Brooklyn. Peggy felt her mouth go dry. “I am being supremely lazy this morning. What time?”

She knew he knew better. “Say six o’clock? I think there is an old friend of yours you’d like to see.”

“See you then!” Her heart thumped painfully in her chest as she tried to suss out what he meant by “old friend.” Had he found signs of the _Valkyrie_? She hadn’t even heard they were manning and expedition? Would it be that easy? Desperate hope and longing hit her all at once as she stared at the digital clock on the stove top range saying it was only 9 am in the morning. This would be a rather long day.

Any hope of a plan for being productive failed miserably with everything she picked up. The work on setting up a team for the Avengers - when they formed them - sat on her computer, untouched, unable to focus on any of them. She flipped through the television in the hopes of finding something mindless, a habit she didn’t normally partake of, but found herself doing out of restlessness. She picked up magazines and books, worked out for an hour in the very fine athletic facilities SHIELD had installed for their employees in this building, and finally decided instead to just go early and perhaps find something to occupy her time until her designated meeting time.

She dressed carefully, unsure why Fury wanted a meeting in such a public space and aware both of the sticky humidity outside and the need not to draw attention to herself. Had this been 1948 she would have perhaps laughingly given into the holiday, dressing in something red white and blue and mulishly insisted that they were Britain’s colors before America’s. Instead she decided to wear a dark, navy blue top, something that conveyed the spirit without drawing attention to herself. The white capris and simple athletic shoes were an outfit so nondescript as to be boring. With the extra time, she decided to take the long journey via subway out to Brooklyn, blending in with the other revelers making their way across the East River to events, quietly watching the varied and colorful people she saw on the subway; the man who had to work that day, trying to nap, the young woman in a sundress reading a book the teenager with his strange, braided hair and skateboard in a patriotic vest, his ears covered by giant headphones playing the rhythmic music Sharon had labeled “hip hop.” All the while she tried to swallow her nerves and energy, watching the train platforms as they raced by the window.

It only occurred to her on the bridge across the river into the city that Peggy hadn’t once been back to Brooklyn in her whole time in the future. They passed very near the spot on the Brooklyn Bridge where she stood, tipping out the vile of blood they took from Steve so long ago, watching as it spilled red into the swirling river and out into the Atlantic Ocean. Even when she had still been in the 1940’s she hadn’t really gone back to the city. She had few reasons to. Barnes’ had family there, yes, but they didn’t know Peggy, hadn’t known her relationship either to their son or his best friend and she hadn’t wanted to intrude upon their grief at the double loss of both Bucky and Steve. Peggy ended up staying away on the whole, finding too much grief there to give her a good enough reason to go back.

So it was with quite a bit of shock that she took in the booming high rises and updated, modern city Brooklyn had become. Certainly, the red-brick buildings that had characterized the place Steve and Bucky had called home still had a place here, as did the people, the varieties of immigrants and languages heard, just as it had been in their time. But there was a decidedly more modern cast to it, young, artistic, easy going people who all reminded her of Juan and Julio, who spoke the language of organic foods and responsibly sourced clothing, small coffee shops and artist galleries. Even the strip of buildings and the old warehouse that had once housed the SSR research facility Erskine and Howard had worked in was now a glass encased building with shops, offices, and apartments. Peggy wondered what she’d find if she dared to try and look for Steve and Bucky’s old apartment and if it was still there, the home to some other group of young people struggling to get by.

As the sun began to shift towards the far side of Manhattan, Peggy began making her way over to Prospect Park. It wasn’t a small space, but it did have signs up for viewing areas for a concert, and it felt that would likely be the best place to start her search. One of them would find the other. She followed the streams of people wandering over, young people, families with small children, of as many races and languages, enjoying a night of music and fireworks. Even she felt herself swept up in a little bit, smiling at a small girl in a frilly red and blue dress, little flags painted on her chubby, warm brown cheeks, playing with a balloon as she danced in time time the live band playing on the stage beyond.

Peggy hadn’t expected to see Fury immediately. He was a spy and spies knew better. Still, she scanned the crowd, looking for something, the hint of a tall, black man in a ball cap perhaps? She wasn’t sure. Seeing nothing, she decided instead to spread the small throw she brought with her out on the grass, her phone out as she kept an eye on the people wandering past her. Fifteen minutes passed, then twenty. Finally, it pinged with a message saying to meet her on the east side of the arena, by a statue she might recognize. Gamely, Peggy gathered her blanket, tucked it inside her bag, and wandered off to find her modern-day counterpart.

Fury wasn’t wrong, she did recognize the statue.

She almost stopped dead when she realized who it was, half shocked, half appalled. The likeness was certainly heroic, Captain America in his uniform, shield high above him as he stood, one leg planted before him, the other up on some rise, as if he were swatting away some sort of giant fly or preparing to smash something over the head. Made of bronze, it looked like something ridiculous from one of his comic books and nothing like the way Steve fought in the field at all.

“I thought you’d get a kick out of that.” Unsurprisingly, Fury snuck up on her once again. She turned to glare at him pointedly as he shrugged, holding up a hot dog in silent tribute. “I brought food!”

“So you did,” she replied with a dry but grateful smile. She took the proffered hot dog gently from him, eyeing his ubiquitous uniform of dark slacks and a dark t-shirt underneath a dark baseball cap. “You don’t stand out much in a crowd dressed like that.”

“Good, means it’s working.” He jerked his head towards a bench on the far side of the statue where they could sit, on the outside of the gathered crowds. He settled, reaching into the utility pockets on the side of one long leg to pull out two bottled waters, handing her one, along with a wad of napkins. “Figured you’d want some.”

‘Thank you,” she murmured, accepting both and setting them beside her as she contemplated the sausage in hand. She wouldn’t deny she did have a particular fondness for New York style hot dogs, especially in summer, made in the little stands dotted all over the city. It was the sort of thing that had so cliche it had become classic about the city. She bit into it carefully, covered in mustard and onions, trying to do so in a way that she didn’t manage to get it all over herself and her slacks.

“This is the taste of summer for me,” Fury hummed, having already tucked into his own. “Fourth of July, hot dog in hand, waiting for fireworks.”

“You make it sound idyllic,” Peggy observed around a mouthful. “I’m guessing then your childhood was a pleasant one?”

He knew what she was about and smiled. “Pretty much, all things considered. It was Alabama in the 1960s, not precisely a peaceful time if you were black in America, but my parents did their best.”

That was one thing, then, that Peggy now knew about him. “You were born after I disappeared.”

“Not long after, yeah. Today’s my birthday, as a matter of fact.”

What were the odds of that? “Really? Happy birthday!”

“Thank you,” he chuckled, finishing his hot dog and wiping discreetly at his mouth. “Always hated it as a kid because it was never just about me. All the other kids got to have birthdays to themselves and I had to share it with the country.”

“Steve said the same thing.” She glanced to the ridiculous statue with a hint of fondness. “Today is his birthday as well.”

“I know,” Fury acknowledged, crumpling his napkin in his long fingers. “You know, I always looked up to him when I was a kid.”

That caught her by surprise. “Did you?”

“Mmm, yeah. He always did what was right, no matter how hard it was. You know, all my military career, I thought it was hard being a good soldier, especially being a good, black soldier. But it’s a helluva lot harder to be a good man in this world. He somehow figured that out.”

“It was who he was...is…” She had to believe that he was still that if they found him. “Steve always wanted to do what was right, even if it would have been smarter for him not to.”

“Which is why the world needs him.” Fury beside her pulled out his phone, tapping it quietly. “We haven’t found him yet, but I finally got permission to begin the search.”

“The director of SHIELD needed permission to run an operation in his own agency?”

“He does if he doesn’t want a political standoff with the World Security Council.” Fury didn’t sound thrilled with it. “Fact is Caps place is lost and we aren’t sure if it’s in international waters of in those belonging to Canada or Greenland. That took a minute to negotiate, especially because we can’t tell them why we are interested either.”

It clicked with Peggy why. “They are worried you are spying?”

“We are a spy agency, you have to give them some credit. Anyway, word has been put out and we have fishing and merchant ships on the ground looking.” He highlighted a map on his screen of a huge area, the islands of North America in the Arctic Circle. “Best case scenario, he’s easy to find. Worst case, we have to start sending research teams up there with equipment to start looking through the ice. Given the fact that weather patterns and global warming are already making life up there difficult, out scientists don’t think that’s a good idea and I’m inclined to agree, so that’s a last resort.”

Peggy couldn’t help the thrill of the first small glimmer of hope she’d had in years, since the horrible day in 1945, sitting in that radio room in Schmidt’s Austian fortress, helpless as she and Steve discussed a dance that would never happen. “But you’ll find him? You’ll bring him home?”

“Yes,” Fury rumbled, simply. “Mind you, we don’t know what condition he’s in yet. It may not be as simple as thawing him out and waking him up. I’ve got a team pouring through Erskine’s notes now. They may reach out to you eventually. You’re the last person alive who knew his work and just how it affected Rogers.”

“Not so much, I’m afraid. Howard was much more into that than I was, he had the better idea of the exact science.”

“Would you know enough if you had access to Howard’s notes you could offer insight?”

“Possibly, if I could understand Howard’s notes.” It occurred to her what that meant. “You have those and not Tony?”

“I’m sure Coulson’s told you by now that Howard didn’t exactly inform his son about his history working with SHIELD.”

“He did, but not why.” That mystery lingered, the truth behind why Howard would keep his own son in the dark about what he was up to.

Fury didn’t seem to know much more himself. “Stark became more and more careful in his later years. A combination of things, really, from what I gathered. SHIELD was transitioning at the time, moving down to DC and coming under the control of the World Security Council, shifting its leadership to one that was more closely aligned with international governments. Add on top of that the end of the Cold War looming and what that meant for the international community and his own research projects, of which I know of at least four going on at the time, he was to put it bluntly overworked. He’d gone through a rough patch there for a while. I didn’t know him then, but I heard it involved alcohol. He and Maria had a hard time when Tony was young. All that pooled together and I think that things like being honest with your kid about what daddy does at the office may have just slipped by. Maybe he didn’t want to tell Tony. Maybe he wanted his kid to grow up being something his father wasn’t.”

Peggy considered the man she met, with his sad charisma barely covering the frightened and tired man underneath it all. “That didn’t particularly work out for him.”

“No, I guess it didn’t.” Fury cracked open the bottle of water he had kept for himself, pulling from it slowly. “The son has always been a bit too much like the father.”

“At least until now.”

“You mean his whole new resolution with Stark Industries?”

“That, yes. For every one good weapon Howard made, he also made a hundred bad weapons, ones that hurt people in ways he never intended. Most of them he tried to keep out of the public hands, but that didn’t mean he stopped himself from making them. In a million years I couldn’t imagine Howard deciding one day that he’d simply stop production on the one thing that his company was built on out of his sense of guilt over what his products had done.”

Fury swallowed before answering. “That wasn’t Howard’s style at all, no. Makes you wonder why Stark did it.”

Peggy realized she wasn’t the only one fishing. “You agree with Coulson?”

“I like to keep my options open. What do you think happened?”

“I think that someone thought they were clever.” She watched in the distance as a pair of teenagers floated a piece of plastic back and forth, not unlike how Steve would toss his shield. “I think someone at Stark Industries was trying to make a buck under the table, maybe because they needed it, maybe because they deserved it, most definitely because they thought they could get away with it. Perhaps they had the ties to the black market, perhaps those ties reached out to them, but whatever the case they decided to go behind Stark’s back. Maybe it was a good thing for a while, until either they were noticed or they feared they were and decided to remove him before he could find it.”

“If that was the case, that’s a piss poor way of doing it.” Fury snorted dismissively, stretching his legs out as she slouched on the bench, watching the same two teenagers. “Not only was Stark not removed but now he knows someone did it and he’s cutting off the source.”

“Or at least trying to.” Peggy had kept a tab on the financial news, as much for the Stark case as for her own interests in terms of Stark Industries stock. “The board is in a tizzy, there are those who are saying he’s unfit to be CEO at this time.”

“Saw that. Funny how whenever a man says he has a brilliant new weapon to blow people off the face of the earth, he’s a genius, but when he says he wants to do something to bring peace and save lives he’s crazy.”

“Fear tends to always outrun sensibility,” Peggy muttered, remembering even the fears of her childhood and the specter of two wars that had framed it. “The problem is that he may well get cut out on any corporate decision and the situation will be a moot point.”

Pulling from his water once again, Fury sighed. “You know, towards the end of his life, Howard kept talking about how what the world needed wasn’t bigger guns or smarter bombs. We needed people, good people, ones who had the strength of will and character to keep the world safe, who could be the guardians for us so we didn’t need to build planes and weapons of mass destruction. Of course, he got laughed at for the idea, because where do you find those sort of people who are so good, so perfect, so free from a government agenda, and still strong enough to manage that sort of feet.”

“You’re Avengers?” Peggy now began to connect the thread.

Fury shrugged. “Not going to lie, I was one of the few people who didn’t think his idea was stupid. After talking to some other people, having some conversations about the state of the world, seeing that there was good people out there who could do it, I thought we might as well give it a shot. What the hell was it going to hurt us?”

“I asked Hill for a department.” Peggy figured she might as well inform him of that much, though she suspected he already knew. “If you want this off the ground, you need to have it organized. You can’t just have it as a slap-dash tactical team you call when you feel like it. To justify this and the potential expense you have to have logic and reason behind it with clear objectives as to what it’s purpose and outcomes are.”

“Which is why I asked you to take this up.” He crossed his arms over his chest, pleased with himself. “Between you and me, no one else in this agency takes me seriously about this.”

“I can’t imagine why,” she shot back a tad acerbically. “So far all I have are spreadsheets of data and a rather terrifying catalog of people who have skills but with no rhyme or reason. What did you want out of this?”

“Heroes,” he replied, simply, as if that was the answer.

“It's a pity they don’t have those readily for sale down at the market.”

He only laughed at her tart reply, nodding at the statue in front of them. “I don’t know, you always had a good knack at finding them.”

She stared up at the artist’s rendition of Steve’s face, the firm, almost grimacing defiance on it. “I didn’t find him, Erskine did.”

“And who was it that helped him sneak out of that camp in Italy and then talked Howard into flying his own plane into Austria to drop him off?”

“Ahh, well, that.” She did shoot him a bit of a cheeky smile. “I believed in him when few people didn’t.’

“That’s my point.” Fury turned his one good eye towards her sharply. “This is a crazy idea. You know it, I know it. Not even my most trusted people believe it completely and Coulson would sell his soul for a chance to meet Steve Rogers. No one is willing to believe that any one person, let alone group of heroes, can protect us or that they are even needed. But you did. You listened to a crackpot story from a perfect stranger and somehow jumped through time just to save the world. You’re one of those heroes. You believe in Steve Rogers, he’s one of those heroes. And I got to believe there are more of them out there in the world to face what’s coming and that you know how to find them.”

Peggy met his singular gaze for long moments, unsure if she was worthy of that task. “You are a hopeless romantic, Nicholas.”

He grimaced at the use of his first name. “Let’s just say I know the difference heroes...real heroes, can make.”

“And what if Stark is one of the ones I want?” She may as well address the elephant in the park. “Lang made it clear he was a member of the Avengers, he is the one who bucks heads with Steve.”

“Somehow, him potentially bucking heads with Rogers doesn’t shock me. He’s used to maintaining his own authority and playing by his own rules. Sort of makes you wonder what he’s up to out there in LA, hiding out in his mansion, not talking to anyone and having Stane run the show.”

Frankly, Tony having Stane run the show wasn’t a shock, that had been his modus operandi for years. But Fury did hit on something. When she even mentioned Tony in the beginning, his participation in the Avengers, Fury had been dubious. A playboy into his race cars, he said, not a hero. But that had been before Afghanistan, before he had been captured, before he broke himself out...and he had broken himself out.

“Stark created something in that cave,” Peggy muttered, more spitballing, thinking out loud. “We saw images of it, Agent Burk found it. At the time I thought it could have been his ticket out. Howard had tried to create rocket packs back during the war, something to have soldiers use, but nothing definitive ever came out of it. It was far too dangerous.”

Fury followed her line of reasoning, his one good eye curious. “You think he figured out a work around?”

Peggy shrugged, thinking. “Maybe not a perfect one, at least not at first. Whatever he created only got him so far and then failed before he crash landed in the desert. But if Tony is anything like Howard, he’s an iterist, most engineers are, and he won’t be satisfied with something one and done. He’ll want to improve it, to make it better. What if that is what he’s up to, working on improving his initial effort from Afghanistan?”

“Which means that Tony Stark could have another insane creation up his sleeve.”

“And he’s how you get your Avengers.” The pieces slid into place for Peggy. “He was raised to build weapons, but he’s shut down all manufacturing in his plants. My guess, he no longer trusts anyone with his tech, save himself. He’s seen what others do with it, he has seen when others allow it to fall into the wrong hands, he doesn’t trust anyone but himself with it. What if he decides the only one who can use it is him?”

Fury clearly didn’t find that any more comforting that the idea of Stark could be trading in weapons at all. “And you don’t find that frightening in the least bit?”

“I mean...it could be frightening, yes, but I don’t think it is.” Not judging from the man she saw in Los Angeles, the broken, tired, hurt man. “No, I think for once in his life Tony Stark saw just what the true human cost of his own wealth and ambition was and it hurt him, seriously affected him. I don’t know about you, but if I were in that position, I’d want to have a means to protect myself and others, a way to keep everyone safe.”

Fury didn’t look convinced. “Or a means to destroy my enemies and control the world.”

Peggy would have laughed at him and his skepticism, but instead chose to only snort, dryly. “If Stark can’t manage his own company himself, he isn’t going to control the world. Besides, I think he’s a much better person than people give him credit for.”

“Why, because he’s Howard’s son?”

“Because Howard was a better person than he gave himself credit for, too.” Peggy had always believed that. Despite his many faults, Howard tried to do what was right, even if he failed in the attempt. “He wanted to do what was right and I see that in Tony as well. And if this is what he’s up to, if this is what he’s developed, that is a piece of the Avengers, a big piece. A supersoldier who is one of the best tactical strategists and a genius who understands not just how to make a bigger gun but has the compassion to know sometimes it’s better not to use it. Now...we just need to find the rest.”

Fury nodded, chuckling quietly. “Man, hearing it from you makes us both sound crazy for thinking this is a good idea.”

“Who says we aren’t?” Peggy shrugged, watching the teeming crowd beyond. Lang had said there would be a threat, and alien threat, to the Earth...to New York specifically. “Do we have a plan in place for New York City in the event of an attack from the outside?”

“Do you mean terrorists?” His nonchalant tone meant that yes, they at least had a plan for that.

“Not exactly,” she shrugged. Thankfully he seemed to infer her meaning.

“Do you believe we need one?”

“Yes,” she sighed, remembering Lang’s offhanded comments. “I very much think he will need one.”

“I’ll see what I can draw up. In the meantime, I guess you will have to figure out just what Stark is doing in his mansion and if it has to do with some sort of rocket pack.”

“You say it like that and it sounds silly,” Peggy teased, turning Fury’s earlier words on him. She considered, looking around them, the crowds of people, the statue of Steve, the excitement of a summer evening on a holidays. “Why did you call me out here? Why didn’t you just call me in the office?”

“Fewer eyes and ears,” he shot back, promptly, which was likely more true than not. “And besides, I thought it would be worth considering, once again, what it was we were all fighting for.”

“A rank sentimentalist,” Peggy muttered, not in the least disagreeing with him.

“A good spy knows how to apply psychological means when necessary,” he shrugged, unapologetic. “Besides, I wanted a hotdog and fireworks. It’s my birthday.”

Perhaps there was a hint of truth in that as well.


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy suspects what Tony's been up to.

“So you think that Stark made it out of a terrorist base camp in the mountains of Afghanistan by coping the plot of from the movie _The Rocketeer_?”

Peggy blinked at Cassandra, not understanding the reference. “Does it involve World War II and insane plans for rocket packs?”

“Yes,” Cassandra nodded, delighted by this fact. “Wow, that part was real?”

“More or less...somewhat.” Peggy was digging through crates dropped off in her office, all of them filled with old files and plans, schematics and drawings for inventions and machines that Howard had dreamed up and surprisingly had restraint enough not to create or which had been put through a testing phase before being mothballed by him. “Howard had more ideas than he knew what to do with, some of them were just him spitting them out and some engineer taking it and running with it to see if they could figure it out. The rocket pack thing was one of those. He wondered why we risked the lives of airmen doing paramilitary air drops when we could have them fly themselves in directly. He hoped to create something they could fly themselves, saving the use of airplanes to do it at the same time of having the added advantage of stealth. One man with a rocket pack isn’t as detectable as an entire air squadron and they don’t tend to advertise their appearance.”

“Not the craziest thinking. So what happened with the plan?”

“What happened with many of Howard’s inventions, he built it and discovered it had a flaw.” She yelped as she caught a fingertip on the edge of an old file, hissing through her teeth at the pain of the paper-cut. “None of this was scanned electronically?”

“Says the woman who didn’t know how to use a computer a few months ago,” Cassandra teased as she helped Peggy lift the stack onto her desk.

“Till you’ve had to live in the hell of paper filing, you can’t know the joys of the electronic version. I had to do it for the entire SSR office.”

“Why?”

Oh, to be young and living in a time when your gender didn’t define what type of office work you were asked to do. “Because I knew the English alphabet. In any case, Howard did a few prototypes of his work, never any live tests that I know of. He never could get it right, make it cool efficiently. If you think about it, it’s essentially placing the same sort of engine they use in an airplane on a human’s back. That was never going to work, the heat exchange alone would cook a regular person in minutes, and that is to say nothing on ensuring that the fuel doesn’t catch on fire. In the end it was more trouble than it was worth, so he scrapped it and focused on other things.”

“Things like a weapon that crushes a person’s arm completely?”

Peggy turned sharply to the notebook Cassandra had in her hands. “He said that was supposed to be a massager.”

“The hell sort of massage did he get?”

“I wouldn’t get that one,” Peggy warned as a knock on her door caught her attention. She looked up to see Agent Burk, smiling at his prompt appearance. “Come in! You have the photographs?”

“That and something more.” He eyed the open crates with slight interest, but wandered to one of the chairs in the room. “Mind if I connect to your monitor?”

“Not at all,” she replied, snagging a pile of books, files, and notebooks on various projects, inventions, and scrapped ideas, carrying them around her desk. “More information on the Stark case?”

“I’ve continued to dig into the data we collected off of Stark’s satellites. I think I picked up something interesting.” Within seconds he had the screen on and several windows of numbers and letters up. “As you recall, we tracked the signals going back and forth over Stark’s satellites to Afghanistan but it was all encrypted. I could track it to Afghanistan and to Stark’s satellite network, but not away from there.”

Peggy frowned, feeling a bit lost. “What do you mean?” 

Burk, blessedly, didn’t judge her confusion. “Whoever set it up was good and careful. They may have used the private signal on Stark’s satellites, but they set up a whole series of web protocols to hide their tracks - VPN accounts, changing IP addresses, nothing that was traceable beyond Stark’s satellite network. This means that while we could find the signal to Afghanistan and back, I couldn’t trace it back to the other end.”

“Let me guess,” Cassandra chimed in as she settled herself by Burk. “They are using a dark web set up?”

“Bingo! Only way to do it, really, for something like this.”

“Dark web?” Peggy felt herself grasping, unable to keep up with half of this technological jargon.

Blessedly, Cassandra took pity on her. “It’s basically the absolute dregs of the internet, the deepest parts of it that no search engine can ever find. You have to use special programs and protocols to even get in there. It’s where you go when you want to find something or do something illegal. Drug smuggling, murder for hire, terrorist activity...worse.”

“Worse?”

“Think of the worst acts you could imagine doing to someone and I can guarantee there is a video of it on the dark web,” Burk muttered, looking grim. “I’ll spare you the details, but yeah, if it’s horrific and deviant, it’s out there.”

The very idea of that frightened Peggy. “And no one has thought to stop it?”

“Not a lot anyone can do to stop it. The digital web is a wild, crazy place, which makes it easy to find pockets of it to hide your activities on. That’s what this person did.” With a few keystrokes windows opened, communications of all sorts popping to life. “They basically created a fake VPN that mimicked that used by Stark’s personal AI, so even if anyone saw it they would just assume it was something Stark was running.”

“AI?” Peggy wished heartily he would remember she didn’t understand half his slang.

Burk at least looked apologetic. “Sorry, artificial intelligence, Stark has a program that is self aware and it is connected through all of his satellites through a virtual private network, one it runs itself. The thing is that his AI’s VPN connection to the satellite is unique, it’s only ever used by the AI, which has a fixed location every time because it’s housed in a server farm in a specific location. The secondary network doesn’t do that, it has site-to-site capabilities, all within Stark Industries locations and usually accessed using incognito or dummy accounts. Since the data is all encrypted anyway, if anyone managed to even find it they wouldn’t know what it was for and likely would just assume it was Stark Industries business.”

“Clever,” Peggy mused. She may only understand a part of it, but the basic gist made sense to her. It wasn’t all that dissimilar to things they did during the war, even if it was decidedly less high tech. “But you broke the encryption on it?”

“Took us weeks, but yeah. Wasn’t easy, we had to pick through what we had packet by packet, which was a nightmare, but we got some of it.” He nodded towards the screen. “Whoever it was used a fake name on a secure, dark web email account as their primary means of communication, and they weren’t messing around either. I have emails going back at least seven years with this particular group, and they aren’t the only ones our suspect is communicating with. You name it, there is a terrorist or insurgent group out there looking for arms, they’ve been in touch at least. Not all of them can meet the price, but all of them want Stark weapons.”

Peggy glanced to Cassandra who looked impassive, shrugging. “They are the best! Can you blame them?”

“The Ten Rings group in Afghanistan comes into the picture just when things were getting really crazy in Afghanistan.” Burk continued. “At first, they were just a small potato organization, referred from some Iranian group, looking for weapons and flashing money. Over time they built a relationship with this person, started getting bigger orders, fancier weapons, demanding nicer stuff. Then about a year ago, our guy started asking around the local groups in the region if they would be willing to take on a job, a high profile one that could bring the risk of exposing themselves to NATO forces in the region. Most of them at least asked, some even laid out terms. Most of the rest of them chickened out, I guess figuring the price was too steep for that. The Ten Rings were the only ones who got far into the discussion. They set their price for shipments of Stark’s weapons plus a cash payout and they agreed to kill whoever it was that our guy had as a target.”

“So it was supposed to be a hit on him?” Peggy felt vaguely ill at that. “Clearly, it didn’t work as he is still alive. What happened?”

Burk grimaced at that. “It’s not clear yet, there are still caches of data we are trying to break. My best guess, judging from the variables on the table and from the few communications we’ve decoded from after Stark’s disappearance, I don’t think the Ten Rings knew for certain who the target was. They agreed to a ‘high profile target’ and took payment without asking a ton of questions beforehand. When it became clear to them who they were being asked to kill, however, that is when the plan changed. My guess, and this is just conjecture from what little I’ve seen thus far, is that when they figured out it was Tony Stark himself they hoped to capture him instead and demand more money for killing him.”

“They were never going to let him go, were they?” Cassandra hit the nail of the situation right on the head.

“I don’t think so,” Burk replied, nodding at the screen. “Judging from what we got here, and this isn’t even all of it, I think what they tried to do was blackmail the person who set it up, convince them to pay out more in exchange for actually killing him.”

“And in the meantime they could hold him hostage and have him build them a weapons system while they waited for their payout. Either way, they win.” Peggy considered the situation. It would have been rather neat and tidy, all things considered, had it worked. Unfortunately, for all parties involved at least, Tony Stark was too smart for all of them. She regarded the dusty folders of plans and schematics that had once belonged to Howard, brushing the edges with a painted nail. “He must have figured out that was what they were up to, or at least enough to know that resisting wasn’t an option. He agrees to do it in principle, but in reality uses the opportunity to get his way out of the situation.”

“The rocket pack?” Burk clicked on his keyboard again, pulling up the photos of Stark in the desert, the wreckage of something scattered across the sands. “We haven’t found it again, either it got covered up or the Ten Rings found it and took it. Either way, we won’t get our hands on it.”

“I just want the pictures,” Peggy murmured as Burk pulled them up, expanding them to fill the screen. They were blurry at best, but she got up to stare at the expanse of light and glass, to study the grainy images of sand and rock and scattered metal, and the footprints of Tony leading away from the scene. Most of what she was looking at didn’t make sense, not with the poor quality of the image and the fact that much of it was buried.

“You think it was a rocket pack after all?” Cassandra wandered up beside her to also study the picture.

“I’m not sure. It could be something totally different with the same notion, the idea of a single-man flight. Do we know what was in the weapons stockpiles at the Ten Rings base he destroyed?”

“Nope,” she replied promptly. “Coulson’s report from the US military said they flushed out the site, but the men and all the usable stuff were gone. Stark’s accounts said they had all sorts of weapons, things he was shocked they could get their hands on, mostly bombs and long-distance missiles, many they modified to their purposes.”

Peggy let her gaze slide over to Cassandra. “He didn’t happen to explain his own escape in that report, did he?”

“Nope, only said he modified some of the tech to formulate an escape.” Cassandra was thoughtful for long moments. “But if you think about it, if you were a genius who had spent all of your life growing up around a military tech and weapons company, you could make anything out of that sort of weaponry.”

“And if you did it once with nothing more than the materials you happened to have at hand, then imagine what you could do when you got back home to your own labs and with your own materials.” Peggy thought of Howard’s “bad babies” and the amazing and horrific things he had created on his own. Leave Tony to his own devices and what would he create.

“If I were him and had just escaped a situation where I knew they were out to kill me and I had somehow made it out, I’d want to build a fortress where no one could get me.” Cassandra glanced back at the pile of nondescript dots that may or may not be rubble. “I’d go into hiding and never come out.”

“Or perhaps build something that I could take with me that would keep me safe no matter where I went.” Peggy remembered the strange suit that Lang had, the one in the weird wristwatch she had tucked away in her jewelry boxed, locked in a safe in her apartment. She’d not pulled it out since SHIELD had set her up there and she certainly hadn’t explained to them what it was or what it was about. All she knew was that it was “nanobots” as Lang had described them, and that they would be Stark’s invention. “What if he’s making a suit?”

Both Burk and Cassandra blinked in confusion at that. It was Burk who spoke up. “A suit? What kind of suit?”

“An armored one.” Peggy stepped back from the screen, still studying it critically. “He had all the materials at hand in that cave - metal, weapons, something to power it with, enough to jury rig something together to get him out and get him airborne and far enough away he could escape before they could regroup and recapture him.”

It all made sense, really, based on what they had and what little Peggy knew of the future. It sounded insane, yes, but then again so had most of Howard’s technology in the 1940s, and still he had managed to create it, even when perhaps he shouldn’t have. Starks had a habit of thinking up insane ideas and figuring out how to make them happen, almost like magic.

Burk at least looked as if the idea wasn’t completely crazy. “You’re talking about a personalized, weaponized, flying suit of armor, right? Like...something out of anime?”

Cassandra got the strange reference, snorting and shaking her head as she eyed the screen. “I mean...I suppose it’s possible. I didn’t know the tech was even there to do anything mech like that.”

Peggy was lost in their clearly shared, popular culture reference. “The technology may not be there for everyone else, but Starks are always on the cutting edge of it.” She nodded to the stack of files on her desk. “Remember the massager?”

Cassandra winced. “That should not even be possible.”

“But it was, mostly because it didn’t occur to Howard that it wasn’t. Just because the rest of the industry isn’t on that level doesn’t mean Tony isn’t. Perhaps he saw this...what is it again?”

“Anime,” Cassandra supplied with a small smile. “Japanese animation, it’s the big, cool hip thing. One of the favorite topics has to do with robots and robot suits that people pilot and they go and fight. No one has ever really made a robot who could do that sort of thing, though, not successfully. Sure, they have them to do small tasks, fetch a beer, kick a ball, maybe help build a car, but not fly and shoot things and not with people in them.”

“But if there is anyone who could do it, it’s Stark,” Burk broke in, thoughtful. “I mean, I’m only slightly older than he is and I remember he was already doing things that were insane and awe inspiring when I was in college. Imagine what he could do now with twenty years under his belt and desperation and fear driving him.”

Peggy could imagine, she’d seen evidence of what he could do herself. It was how she ended up in this time in the first place. “So we have two situations here. One, we know that someone was planning to have Stark killed, someone who had access to these private networks to hide in plain sight. We need to figure who. The second, we now know Stark got out by building some sort of weaponized suit, one he’s likely hiding and perfecting now if I hazard a guess. That is a powerful weapon indeed, one that would be useful...if we can convince him to work with us.”

She had yet to explain anything about Fury’s project to Burk, so it was no surprise when he looked doubtful at Peggy’s final pronouncement. “Hate to say it, Stark is notorious for not liking to work with anyone. It’s why his research and development teams are so crazy, he does it all himself and then just dumps it on their laps and expects them to figure out how to utilize it. He doesn’t play well with others.”

“That I already guessed, but he’s going to have to learn.” Peggy got Howard to do it, more or less, how much harder would Tony be? “How long do you think it will be before someone outside of SHIELD finds out about it? And the minute any government does, they will scream bloody murder. SHIELD will be about the only protection he will have when that happens.”

Cassandra had the next pointed question. “So, let’s say he is building a suit of armor, he’d be an idiot to admit it. How do we convince him the jig is up and we know about it?”

Peggy frowned thoughtfully back at the screen, considering. “There is still a very real danger. Chances are high that if they went after Stark once, they will do it again. We need to figure it out. Once we do, we can approach him with that, earn his trust. We need to get a hold of Coulson and Romanoff, the intel is crucial for them, but I think it’s time we start aligning our causes a bit more. With Romanoff on the inside, she likely will be able to find out who it is that has not only been selling weapons but setting this all up. With that in hand, we might be able to convince Stark to work with us, play upon our mutual desire to ensure the world is safe and that weapons like his don’t fall into the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.”

Cassandra still looked doubtful. “I don’t know if he will buy it. I mean, I know you were besties with his father and all, but Stark likes to be a maverick, doing his own thing, and not answering to anyone. I don’t know how much this will convince him to play with others.”

Peggy wasn’t sure either, outside of the cryptic bits of the future she had from the likes of Scott Lang. “He may not, but it’s better to try and win him over than to let him go on his own like a vigilante and make more headaches for us in the end. He may be well meaning, and I believe with all my heart he is, but I also know the lessons of his father - just because you can do a thing doesn’t mean you should.”

Burk doubtful snort underscored his opinions on the matter. “I doubt that will stop the likes of Stark.”

“No, but it may slow him down a bit.” Peggy nodded, regarding them both. “Well, Agent Burk, I feel it’s time I asked if you want to help me out on a pet project for Director Fury.”

A slow smile crossed his round face. “I thought you would never ask! What are we doing?”

“Putting together a team of heroes to try and save the world.” She glanced towards the fuzzy image on the screen behind her. “And he’s our first target.”


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy had needed conversations.

“For only being in there a month, Romanoff’s found enough dirt on people that it’s a small wonder that there weren’t more efforts to blackmail and extort employees of Stark Industries.” Coulson looked mildly askanced at the data he pulled up for Peggy and Barton’s benefit. “Sharon wasn’t wrong in her assessment, Stark may want to consider cleaning house and removing more than a few employees. We got everything from people charging personal items onto corporate accounts, to developers using corporate resources to develop independent projects unlicensed by Stark Industries. To top it off, there are no less than five spies embedded in the company, three for corporate rivals, one from China, and the last one is CIA spying on the one from China.”

“Nice to know the global intelligence system is so active and robust,” Barton snickered as he leaned back in his seat. “I’m guessing none of them made Nat, did they?”

“Not that she indicated, the corporate spies are your average, run of the mill types; disgruntled engineers or people deliberately hired in to report back to Roxxon, AIM, Oscorp, the usual. The other two seemed to be playing their own cat and mouse game all their own, but she’s keeping tabs all the same.”

“What’s her cover,” Peggy asked, curious, having not been in the actual spy game in a while and more than a bit interested in how it ran now at days. As Romanoff was one of the best-of-the-best, she couldn’t help but be intrigued.

It was Barton who spoke up. “Young student at UCLA law working as a paralegal in the Stark Industries office. We used some of her extensive travel background to play up that she’s interested in international law and give her a hefty, diverse background, the type of thing a company like SI would slobber all over to get their hands on.”

“And the photo shoot she did also helps too,” Coulson quipped, dryly, earning Peggy’s confused frown. “If we are having her keep an eye on Stark while she’s digging, she needs to be able to see him. Attractive woman with brains, an international flair, and a background in modeling is pretty much Stark’s type.”

“In fairness, I think anything that’s female and in skimpy lingerie is Stark’s type,” Barton muttered, somewhat darkly. Peggy got the distinct feeling he wasn’t too pleased with this being Romanoff’s assignment or her cover. “In any case, I’m working handler on this for her. I sent the intel you got from Burk off to her and she’s digging into it. How many people have access to that private network?”

“It’s unclear, as it depends on who Stark has given access. Burk thinks it’s likely that at the very least his most intimate circle has access to it, so that would mean Stark himself, his assistant Potts, his secretary, driver, Stane, his assistant, likely members of the board of trustees, senior level executives who are always on the move and need to have that level of connectivity, anyone who uses their access, say an assistant.” Peggy could laugh at herself sometimes, listening to the way she sounded like she knew what she was talking about - connectivity indeed! “It’s not a large group, but any one of them would have had the ability to connect to it and according to Burk if you left so much as one portal open to it, say you were logged on your laptop or had an unsecure connection to your phone, someone could log onto it.”

She must have sounded as if she knew what she was talking about because it clearly made sense to Coulson and Barton. It was Barton who grimaced. “That means it could be anybody.”

“Most likely, though, it’s whoever has been dealing under the table with the Ten Rings, likely someone who has some sort of sway to do the sort of transactions needed to get weapons and money moved around and who knows Stark well enough, or at least who knows someone who knows Stark well enough, to get that sort of information to them.” Coulson considered for long moments. “I’ll have Romanoff look at anyone who has had a sudden rise in rank or pay raise in the last year to six months, perhaps someone who has finagled the system to get into the right position to pull this off.”

Peggy was thoughtful as she considered. “Whoever did it had to be good with computers, programming, and knew what they were doing to hide their tracks. Burk said all of this was on the dark web, whoever is doing it knows how to maneuver there. Either they know how to manage it or they at least can pay off someone who can. Maybe have her look for someone in the company who is dabbling in that unsavory corner of the world. It could be where she starts at least. Find it and they may lead us to our target.”

“She’ll find it.” Coulson clearly had no doubt about that. “I suppose this is when I tell you that you were right about Stark. I should have listened to your instincts on this one.”

If Daniel, Dooley and Thompson had gotten it wrong on Howard, how could she blame Coulson for assuming the worst on his son? “You had good reason to believe what you did, there is nothing wrong with that.”

“Still, you went with your gut and it was right. I like to think I’m grown up enough to admit when I’m wrong.”

“What he’s saying, Carter, is that unlike other less magnanimous members of this esteemed organization, Phil Coulson is one who likes to give credit where credit is due,” Barton grinned across the desk at the other man. “Also, he doesn’t want to get on your bad side because he really, really wants an autograph.”

“If I wanted that, Barton, I’d hand her a Post-It note,” Coulson grumbled, lightly.

Peggy leaned in conspiratorially to Barton with a wicked smile. “He’s promised me a karaoke night. I’m not sure what that is, but he says they do it in LA and it involves being drunk and singing loudly.”

“Has he now!” Barton was delighted at this. “How come I never get invited to the cool things, Coulson?”

“Do you even sing?” He replied evenly.

“Well you won’t know, now, because you never invited me.”

Coulson only sighed in that weary way that said there was no way he could win this. Instead, he turned his attention back to Stark. “So you are going to pursue him for the Avengers?”

“Yes,” Peggy confirmed, noting he apparently felt free in discussing it in front of Barton. In fairness, judging from Barton’s nonchalance and involvement as Romanoff’s partner he already knew. “I think the reason none of us have heard from him is he’s been developing the technology he used to get out of that cave. I think he’s building a suit and once he does it will be powerful. Whose side will we want him to be on then?”

Coulson took a deep breath, grimaced, and nodded. “Honestly, I’m a bit shocked he hasn’t tried it before now.”

“He didn’t have a reason,” Barton chimed in pointedly. “I mean till this point of time in his life he’s been living the dream. He’s been protected, king of the world, the man who ran everything and had it all under control. This is probably the first time in his life, or at least the first time since his parents died, that he’s had anyone challenge that and push him. What happens when someone hurts us and wounds us?”

“We try to build things to make us safe so it doesn’t happen again,” Peggy murmured, surprised at just how perceptive Barton was. “He’s building something so he doesn’t get hurt again, doesn’t get taken again.”

“PTSD works in all sorts of strange ways. Some of us learn how to take care of ourselves so we can stop the fight and protect those who can’t protect themselves. Some of us build walls around ourselves and keep other people out so they can’t see where we hurt. Sounds like Stark’s doing a little bit of all the above.”

Peggy had to wonder if Barton was speaking about Stark or himself...or perhaps even Romanoff. She pondered that as Coulson picked up the thread of their dropped conversation. “As to the Avengers and Stark, what do you want me to do to help with that?”

“The biggest piece right now is finding out who is dealing under the table at SI and who set Stark up. Chances are high they will try to have another go at him. If we can neutralize it before we approach him, it may make him amenable to listening to our offer. At the very least, he will owe us and that may convince him to at least consider it.”

“And what if it doesn’t? He has a right to say no.”

“He’d be smart not to. Even in my time they didn’t appreciate the sort of weapons Stark can make in the hands of a private citizen. If the SSR had discovered his bad babies, Phillips would have had them out of Howard’s control faster than he could have squawked. It just so happened that Leviathan got them first, forcing Howard’s hand. It may have been 60 years, but I know the military’s memory is long and they haven’t forgotten. If Tony is flashing an armored suit around they will want to control it too, and they won’t be as forgiving about it as they were to Howard.”

“Didn’t they have Senate hearings about his father’s weapons?” Coulson, ever the historian, of course would know that.

“Only because they thought he sold them to the enemy, had they known about them beforehand they would have taken them outright.”

Coulson’s gaze sharpened, narrowed in rueful mirth. “That’s how you knew Stark wasn’t the arms dealer. He’d have grown up with Howard’s story.”

“I did try telling you,” Peggy smiled, shrugging. “Now, will you help me find who is trying to kill him so we can help convince him to join our cause?”

Coulson’s smile twitched up slowly. “I’ll do my best. How long are you in town for?”

“I don’t know yet,” Peggy had come down to Washington mostly to discuss the matter with Coulson and to connect person-to-person and not just over the dratted video cameras. “I plan to take a later train back to New York. Why?”

“I owe you a night of karaoke,” Coulson teased, glancing at Barton. “And I need to see if he can sing.”

Barton shrugged. “Want to lay money on it?”

“Hmmm, sounds like a suckers bet,” Peggy teased. “I am hoping to find the engineering staff here anyway. Cassandra and I have dug up some of Howard’s old notes, particularly on the arc reactor. I’m curious about some of its capabilities. I’m hoping they can help.”

“Hey, Sitwell knows a place, I’m sure we can get a crowd,” Barton joked. Peggy could see they were already formulating a plan and she chuckled.

“Well, you two work out the details and let me know. In the meantime,” she sighed, reaching for her bag. “Duty calls.”

She was ten steps out of Coulson’s office when Barton’s voice paused her in mid stride. She turned to look at him as he caught up to her. “How can I help you, Agent Barton?”

“Well, you’ve helped already. I’m about to win $20 off of Coulson tonight, which always makes me happy.”

“Ahhh, you have hidden talents!”

“On top of having a mean fast ball and the ability to hit threes all day from the field on the court, I also may or may not have been in a band in high school where I was the drummer and lead singer. Dave Grohl was my idol. Basically, I’m a ringer.”

“Sneaky,” she laughed, brightly. “Conned your way past a senior agent.”

“Ehh, Coulson suspects, else he’d never agree to it. He wants to see me do it.” Barton shrugged, shoving his hands into the pocket of his jeans. “Look, I wanted to apologize to you in regards to Romanoff.”

That brought her short. They had wandered down a hallway of bright glass, shaded enough to keep the glare out, overlooking the wide sweep of the Potomac River. Had she not been startled by Barton’s statement, she would have found it lovely. “Why are you apologizing for her?”

“I’m not apologizing for her...more on her behalf.” He was hedging. Peggy narrowed her gaze at him. Barton shrugged, scuffing a steel-toe boot against the carpet. “It’s just I know she’s been less than ideal to work with and I wanted you to be aware I knew.”

“She still can apologize if she wishes...when she wishes.”

“She can, but Nat has had a very hard life, Carter. Harder than you could imagine. Things like apologies, normal human emotions, really are hard for her. She’s got her reasons for it.”

“Which I’m sure she will confront me with in due time.” Peggy softened, seeing Barton’s fumbling attempts to cover for his partner and somehow explain away her cool behavior and blatant distrust. “You are protective of her.”

“Yeah,” he admitted, gruffly, not even apologetic about it. “She’s got nothing in this world, but she has me. Sometimes, that means I help translate Natasha to everyone else.”

Peggy wondered if he was implying they were lovers. “You two seem quite...close.”

That was certainly not her most smooth, double meaning leading statements, but it had the effect of conveying the silent question she was asking. Barton only rolled his eyes, clearly having had this question asked before. “Not like that we aren’t. Nat...there is a lot there, and there are many reasons why that is a horrible idea. Natasha is the most beautiful and broken thing I’ve ever known. Sometimes, that means she’s going to not make sense. I’m just saying that I know it’s not been easy for you, especially with, you know, learning a whole new century, what computers were, whether or not crap television is worth the bother. I get that putting up with that probably wasn’t ideal.”

Barton was a good egg, Peggy decided, for all that he handled this poorly. He at least was trying. “Perhaps when next our paths cross I will reach out to her and see why it is that she bites my head off.”

That seemed to mollify him a little. “Thanks. She’s a good person, Carter, even if she doesn’t see it. She has a good heart. She wouldn’t be here doing this if she wasn’t.”

Romanoff was lucky she had him for a partner. “Well then, I’ll see you tonight and watch you take Agent Coulson’s money.”

He grinned. “You got it.”

She waited as he wandered off in his own direction, briefcase in hand. She knew next to nothing about Barton and less about Romanoff. Still, it gave her a brief insight into Coulson’s favorite pair. Given their closeness, it would be easy to assume a romantic relationship between them, but she believed Barton when he said otherwise. Clearly, that didn’t stop him from looking out for her well being, which perhaps was more of a sibling bond. Considering what Coulson said about Barton’s own troubled upbringing and Romanoff’s horrific one it was perhaps natural that an older brother would look out for a lone wolf without a pack to call her own. What was it that Angie had told her once? Sometimes, family was what you made it.

Which was a pointed reminder of her own family in the building at the moment.

With a sigh, she made her way to the elevators, hitting the button for Sharon’s floor. When the doors opened again she wended her way through the warren of cubicle desks, ignoring curious looks as she wandered up to the space she knew was her niece's. Sharon was behind a large screen, frowning at whatever was on there, her blonde hair piled on top of her head and held in place with two wooden pencils. She only looked up at Peggy’s soft knock against the cubicle frame.

“Hey,” Sharon’s eyes went wide, her smile broad. “You didn’t tell me you’d be in town.”

“I hadn’t planned on it,” Peggy replied, spying the extra seat in her space. “May I sit?”

“Sure,” she kicked a toe underneath the chair to roll it out a bit closer to her desk. “Everyone asked about you over the 4th.”

“Everyone?” Peggy had a feeling Harry didn’t. Sharon’s quick flush and shrug confirmed that. “I’m glad that I was missed.”

Sharon sighed as Peggy settled, clicking out of whatever work she was in, ever a spy. “It’s not that Dad doesn’t care.”

“I know.” Peggy knew that better than anyone. She’d grown up with her mother’s own habit of cold, polite anger. “Your father has reasons to be angry with me.”

“Not great ones,” Sharon muttered, crossing her arms as she glared at the photo of her family on her desk, as if silently rebuking her father through the frame.

“Good or no, they are real to him. He isn’t wrong, you know. I walked away from a lot, I hurt a lot of people - your grandfather and father included. That isn’t something I can take back, and I made that choice. All he knows is I went on a mission and didn’t come back. If he knew the truth, that might be even worse.”

“That you came through time to save the world? That is practically one of his own stories come to life!” Sharon’s hero worship stood so firm, Peggy wondered if she could actually do anything to shock her out of it.

“There is more to the story than just that.” Peggy sighed, realizing now was as good as any to lay the truth before her. “That night...God, has it really been months now...anyway, when Lang came to see me he said I had to help put the Avengers back together, save the world.”

“Fury’s initiative.” Sharon had heard of it in bits and pieces over their work together on Stark’s case. “You said it was why you came forward.”

“That wasn’t all of it.” She’d held on to this piece, unwilling to look like a foolish, lovesick school girl to her niece who she barely knew at the time. “The team, from what Lang told me, are a group of people with special and unique talents. One of the main anchor points for the team as I understand it is actually Stark.”

That piece clicked for Sharon as she nodded. “That was why you were asked to be on the case then.”

“Well, that and my unique Stark handling capabilities, as Romanoff not so delicately put it, but yes, that was a reason for it. The other…” 

She paused, biting her lip nervously. It was the first time she had mentioned the possibility to anyone who wasn’t Fury. “Lang told me the other person who is a key figure in this group is...Steve Rogers.”

It took Sharon a long moment before it hit her who Peggy meant. “Captain America?”

“Yes,” Peggy affirmed, quietly.

Sharon’s messy bun cocked sideways as she mulled that, puzzled. “But...I thought he crashed a HYDRA supercarrier into the ocean.”

“He did. I was there, so I can confirm that.” The words snagged at a not-quite-healed wound, aching as they tumbled out. Funny, she would have thought four years - or sixty-five, depending on how you looked at it - that she could just say it easily. Perhaps it was the fact she had held it back from her niece, who had been nothing but accepting to her. That guilt niggled more than Peggy cared to think about.

Sharon's arched expression told Peggy she’d caught on to that, sympathy stirring in her dark eyes. “I heard that you were the one on the radio with him when he went down.”

“I was.” She fought against the telltale burn at the corners of her eyes. “Which is why I knew that he crashed, but he never gave the coordinates as to where. Our best guess, judging from the coordinates and notes left behind by Johann Schmidt was that it was somewhere in the North Atlantic off the coast of Canada. Considering how fast the ship got there, much faster even than anything I’ve seen even today, we had no way of guessing with any accuracy where he could be. Howard tried, he looked. He spent years doing it, manning expeditions every summer, following every lead from every fishing vessel and sailing ship from Newfoundland to Greenland, but found nothing. Even then, I don’t believe any of us believed anything other than he was dead, killed in the crash, buried beneath the ice.”

“But you’re saying now he’s not?”

Sharon’s shocked dubiousness left Peggy chuckling darkly. “I show up on New Year’s Day after six decades missing and somehow the idea of a supersoldier who has been genetically engineered to be able to heal and survive some of the worst sorts of conditions of battle surviving an icy plane crash is what is the most shocking and unbelievable to you?”

“Believe me, you didn’t see me in Fury’s office when he told me you had shown up on his doorstep. I didn’t believe that then.” She shook her head, setting the pencils in her hair waving. “I just...forget, maybe that some of the crazy things I’ve heard are absolutely true.”

“I’ve still not managed to get to Mars,” Peggy deadpanned, earning a snort out of her niece.

“There’s time yet, I suppose.” She eyed Peggy knowingly. “You’re trying to find him, aren’t you?”

“I’m not, no. Fury is. That was our agreement. He would find Steve if I agreed to take on the Avengers Initiative. That’s what I have been working on all these months when not trying to find Howard’s wayward progeny. I think I have the solid workings to get started. I asked Cassie if she’d work with me. She’s wanted to do something else other than interior decorating, so I’ve brought her on to assist me, and I poach Burk sometimes when it’s convenient.”

She knew it would hurt Sharon that she hadn’t asked. She saw it, despite her attempts to hide it. Sharon was a Carter, after all, and pride always did go before the fall with them. “Wow, sounds like you have a group starting to gel.”

“Sharon,” Peggy sighed, wondering how to navigate this. “I wanted to ask, but first I didn’t want to assume. You have a career down here, a position you’ve carved for yourself, far removed from either myself or Michael’s reputation. If I had you come up to New York, the optics wouldn’t be ideal. We both know that.”

She was smart enough to see that and didn’t appear to disagree. “True, I acknowledge that. It does smack of a dollop of nepotism when one leaves to go work with their legendary, just-returned-from-the dead great-aunt who is working on a big project for Nick Fury. But it would have at least been nice to have the conversation, Peggy. You sort of assumed...what am I supposed to think?”

Bugger it all, she did have the worst way of handling delicate, interpersonal situations. “You’re right, I own that. A phone call would have been in order, a conversation, but...you know, part of the reason your father is angry with me, Sharon, isn’t just that I disappeared. He’s angry because of you.”

“Me?” If the news of Steve Rogers had stunned her, this idea floored her. “What do you mean? What do I have to do with any of it?”

Why were families ever so complicated, Peggy privately bemoaned. “Simple, really. For all of the mad stories, Sharon, there is a lot of hurt and fear. To them, I just disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again. You work for SHIELD, for the very organization I started and created, that your grandfather worked for. Notice your father doesn’t, nor does Maggie. He didn’t want to have anything to do with it, and who can blame him. After all, I went off on a mission and never came home again. What is to say that won’t happen to you or perhaps even worse.”

Unsurprisingly, mutiny immediately sprang up in her niece. “I’m not some idiot who throws herself in danger left and right.”

“No, you’re not, but I was.” Peggy might as well own up to her own flaws. “And let’s be honest, so was your grandfather. Michael and I did a lot of...very unwise things in the course of our careers. And you following in those footsteps, I can see why your father worries. Will he get a call from Fury one day saying that you went off on a mission and are never coming home?”

That only mollified her niece slightly. “It’s my life and my choice. I’m here at SHIELD to do good work, to do something meaningful, just like you.”

Her words, so casually, if angrily, said, hit Peggy heavily. Like it or not, she had been the person Sharon had spent all of her life looking up to. How could Peggy expect Sharon to be anything less than what she herself was? Pride rose within her and a bit of respect. She couldn’t help the smile that floated upwards even in the face of Sharon’s ire. “My mother would have despaired of the likes of you.”

That cooled the edge off of Sharon’s aggravation. “I take that as a compliment.”

What a pair the two of them made, aunt and niece, both determined to run into danger and hang anyone who tried to stop them. “I suppose if there is anyone who questions our relationship, that proved it right there. I will say this, I won’t ask for you to come and work with me on the Avengers. If you wish and if proper paperwork is put through, you are always welcome, but between you and me, Sharon, I think politically and experientially it is better for you to stay here. You are closer to your family, you are in the center of SHIELD politics here, and what’s more you can find your own path in the organization not working for your aunt.”

“The aunt who has the cool project,” Sharon retorted. “I’m going through the streaming video records of a person-of-interest in a car bombing last week and if I have to see any more of his adult video preferences I may need to pluck the eyeballs out of my head.”

Peggy cringed, too afraid to ask what and sure it was awful. “I leave the decision up to you. In the meantime, I’m in town for the day and I may have gotten suckered into witnessing your colleagues drink and sing badly. You can come if you like.”

“Sounds like a blackmailing opportunity if ever there was one.” Sharon, ever the spy it seemed, clearly was intrigued.

“Good! I'll come by after I swing by the engineers, see what they have to say on some pieces I”m working on.”

“Regarding Stark?” Sharon eyed her briefcase speculatively.

“About what he’s up to, yes.” Already, Peggy felt she had spoken a bit too freely in an open space. “I have a feeling he’s figured out something big. If he has...then we will see what he will do with it.”

Sharon considered that in equal parts work and surprise. “Will it be dangerous?”

“Possibly, but not for us.” Peggy shrugged, pulling herself up. “I’ll come find you when I’m done.”

“None of this makes me feel any better,” she heard Sharon mutter behind her as she returned to the elevators. Frankly, Peggy agreed with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you were wondering...yes, he can sing, and so can Renner.


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy puts the pieces together.

The news broadcast made it sound so horribly prosaic. Insurgent forces had zeroed in on the Gulmira valley, high in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, a community built off of the shepherding and wool, like other mountainous, agricultural areas in the region. It was economically poor, its meager population forced to flee for their lives in the conflict. Images flickered on the screen in full color of women and young children running as smoke and rubble surrounded them, bombs flying in from off screen to rain down on ancient villages, the wounded being carried out by desperate looking, able bodied men, the camera brutally refusing to turn away from the blood and visceral damage of those caught in the horrific crossfire.

Peggy watched, remembering all too well similar situations from the war. She shivered, the sound of bombs still vivid despite the years, the memories of burning buildings crystal clear, mother’s screaming for dead husbands and children, the wounded being carried away to hospitals, the smoking ruins of blackened and burned out buildings. Those were all scars she carried with her. She’d been fortunate for most of the war, she’d been away from London and the worst of it, either in America or in Europe, and had only been back when she was in SSR HQ or when visiting her parents in relatively quieter Hampstead Heath. She hadn’t had to live through the full horror like so many others had - like these people were.

As ambivently as it had been reported, the news moved on from the story to something else, as if these sorts of things were just normal, everyday events, like a robbery or a car accident and not the wanton destruction of a people and their way of life. Perhaps, in this modern world it was. Peggy muted the sound of it, frowning as she flipped through pages of notes on Howard and his many inventions, specifically the rocket packs he had fiddled with during the war. She’d seen one or two of his experiments in this area. Howard had liked to show off, and none of them had ended well. One in fact had nearly got them all killed in a fire that had destroyed one Army hanger and had cost Howard a pretty penny to rebuild. He’d continued the experiments off and on, especially as Stark Industries became more heavily involved in aerodynamics and aerospace, but he’d eventually abandoned it sometime after she disappeared, mostly out of the impracticality of it all. Howard had never figured out the inherent problems of strapping an engine fueled by petroleum products on someone’s back, all of which could lead to disaster if not designed right. Add to that the issues with controlling flight once in the air and protecting the body from not only the stresses of the flight itself, but the unfortunate circumstances of either a fall or a flaming engine, it all seemed hardly worth it. Besides, by the time he had set the project aside, the jet age had well and truly set in and the project was seen as out-of-date and passe. Howard’s final comments on it in a memo closing it all down said that he doubted they would ever have the technological capability to make it ever a viable option, especially not for faster-than-sound travel. The project was mothballed and hadn’t been looked at in years, not even it seemed by Tony.

And yet there sat the images Burk had taken of something in the desert sands that Tony had used to fly out of that camp. What was he building? Whatever it was, he had yet to poke his head out of his Malibu compound, not even to visit Stark Industries. Romanoff said that all briefs meant for his eyes were being passed through to Pepper Potts and that Stark hadn’t been seen in the building since January, before his disappearance. The rumor was that he was turning into a recluse, hiding away from the public, likely for good. Perhaps he was, but Peggy highly doubted that. Starks loved the limelight, and eventually they would come above ground again, if nothing else because they were bored and liked the attention.

“Did you see the news on the financial markets?” Cassandra interrupted Peggy’s thoughts, pulling her from her thoughts.

“You might want to check this one out.” The other woman grabbed the remote from Peggy’s desk and began flipping through it expertly in a way Peggy still wasn’t comfortable with. She easily found a channel geared towards business, because of course the future had channels just devoted to that. It didn’t take Peggy long to see why.

“The board is trying to shut Tony out?” She frowned at the headline screaming on the lower third of the screen, looking for any indication as to why.

“Don’t know yet. I took the liberty of reaching out to Coulson, though, and he said he’s on it.” Cassandra frowned. “If they band together, they could vote him out as CEO. He’ll lose control of his own company.”

Somewhere in her memory, Peggy could hear Howard’s outrage at that. “That’s his father’s company! Howard built that, they wouldn’t take it away.”

“They would after he’s unilaterally shut down production on the one thing Stark Industries is known for. They are the board of directors, they are there to make money, and SI has taken a wallop since Stark’s little announcement when he got back. The fact that he’s not come out with any new ideas has made most of them downright terrified and now they want him gone.”

Peggy had seen, of course, the building tension as the company’s stock bottomed out. “If they remove him, they can put whoever they want on. Who holds the next largest share of stock on their board?”

Cassandra smirked as she held up her phone. “According to their financial information, that would be Stane, actually. He has a giant chunk he was paid with years ago by Howard Stark and then has acquired his own. After Tony, he has the next largest amount to leverage, which I suppose he could use to block a vote of no confidence if he wanted.”

Pieces began to fall painfully into place. “Unless he doesn’t want to.” Small things began to click together and make a strange and unsettling amount of sense. She reached for her phone receiver, dialing the extension for Burk downstairs.

“Burk,” he rumbled pleasantly.

“It’s Carter. Do you have that data you decoded from the Stark satellites?”

“Yeah, though I’m still working on it.”

“Could you bring it up? I think we hit on something.”

“I’ll be up in five,” he replied, hanging up as Peggy stared at the phone, thoughtfully.

“What’s up, boss?” Cassandra had yet to follow the full train of the thread that Peggy now pulled, unraveling all of it.

“I think I finally pieced together what’s been going on.” Peggy’s mind swirled, picking out pieces here and there, the scant evidence that had been right in front of her nose the whole time, which she hadn’t connected together despite it being obvious. How had she missed it?

“Cassie, your files on Stark’s disappearance and motives. What do you have on Stane?”

The other woman blinked in mild surprise. “Let me go grab my files.”

Peggy watched her rush out the door as she pulled up her own files. Cassandra was soon back with her tablet and a stack of files, settling at the far corner of Peggy’s desk. “You think he’s the one pulling the strings.”

“Honestly, I’m more irritated with myself for not seeing it sooner.” She grimaced as she pulled up the files. “Whoever was behind this had to not only be close enough to Stark to know his personal habits, but have authority enough to be able to work behind his back if need be, and they had to know they could get away with it. Who was going to question the authority of Obadiah Stane?”

“No one,” Cassandra murmured, pulling up her own information. Even as she did so, Burk was at the door, laptop in hand, a curious look on his face.

“Burk, come in, I need you to pull up what you have on those satellite files.”

He obliged her, but not without curiosity. “It’s not much more than I had the last time.”

“That’s fine, I more want to see the communications between the email account and the group holding Stark.”

These he pulled up fairly quickly, commandeering the television and changing it from the news to his computer display. “What are we looking for?”

“Clues,” Peggy murmured. “You said that whoever accessed this used encryption tools that hid who they were but not where they were.”

“Right, they are all Stark Industries locations.” Burk pulled up a list of number, none of which made sense to Peggy, but all of them had cities tied to them.

“Were any of the communications during Stark’s time in captivity.”

Burke clicked across his keyboard. “Yeah, these five.” He hovered his cursor arrow over the highlighted group. “Primarily the VPN leads back El Segundo, New York, Seattle, Malibu, the usual suspects.”

Peggy nodded, noting the two instances pinging from Malibu. “Why would there be uplinks from Malibu?”

Burk blinked, it hitting him how strange that would be. “Whoever is using this VPN incognito is using existing Stark networks they could reliably say other Stark employees use to cover their tracks.”

“Except no one would have been using anything from Malibu as that is Stark’s home and he wasn’t there.”

“His assistant was there, though, as was his driver and several maintenance people,” Cassandra supplied. “Sharon found most of that out when she interviewed them.”

“But I bet if we look, none of them were in New York and Seattle as well. Why would they be?” Peggy’s brain whirled as she considered. “And Stane has prime real estate in Ventura County, just north of where Stark’s house is at. It wouldn’t be hard to blur that, would it.”

“No,” Burk acknowledged, thoughtful. “And whoever was doing this knew what they were doing setting it up, the encryption, hiding the files, linking it to known Stark servers to cover their tracks, and hiding it on the satellites in the first place.”

“That’s how Stane got his start,” Peggy recalled, glancing at Cassandra. “Stane worked in the satellite industry before he was bought out, he was a pioneer in it. I bet if we look into the program at SI he is still intimately involved in it.”

“We have a suspicion, though, nothing concrete,” Cassandra countered, more pointedly than doubtfully. “To pin this on him we need to find that.”

“I need Coulson,” Peggy was already leaping ahead. Thankfully, Burk seemed to already be on it, establishing a digital link.

“Figured that would be your next statement.” He grinned under his large glasses. The small icon that indicating it was waiting for a connection the other end span for some time before a voice answered finally, without the video. “Coulson, how can I help you Agent Burk?”

“It’s Carter,” she called, curious as to why he hadn’t chosen the video setting. “I think we’ve found who our insider is at Stark Industries.”

There was a long beat before he asked. “Who?”

“Stane,” Peggy replied, glancing at the other two. “He is the one who had the means and wherewithal, who had the authority to carry it out, and who would stand to benefit the most from Stark’s fall.”

Cassandra pipped in. “Stark’s being locked out of his own company by the board. Stane is the one shareholder who could block it if he sides with Stark, but he’s not doing it.”

“That hardly makes Stane our target. He’s a savvy businessman and it’s clear Stark isn’t doing anything to stop the hemorrhaging of his company.”

“There’s more,” Peggy nodded to Burk to fill in the other piece.

“I’ve been cracking through that data we got off of Stark’s satellites, his private network. Someone has been running private VPNs, encrypting the data, trying to hide their trail, but they could only hide it so far. They’ve been using Stark data centers to help obfuscate their tracks, but some of it pinged using the same servers that Stark has, essentially trying to make it look like it something maybe he did.”

“Except he wouldn’t have been home for some of these dates as he was in a cave in Afghanistan,” Peggy added, glancing to the screen as if Coulson was there. “His private home is not far away, likely it is routed through the same place.”

She hoped that was right. She slid a glance to Burk who didn’t seem to look outraged at her assumption, and she hoped her 1940’s understanding of modern, 21st century technology held some water. Coulson at least seemed to listen as she heard him sigh softly on the other end of the line.

“Truth be told, I suspected something was up with him early on but didn’t want to trust that. He sold a good line about his care and concern for Stark.”

“He did.” Peggy had believed it for the most part. He’d sold the concern for Tony, the man he’d raised almost as a nephew. Peggy thought of her own family, of Harry and Maggie, of Sharon and her siblings, the brief connection they had together and how already she would do whatever it took to protect them because they were her blood kin. It horrified her to think that for Stane it was all a lie.

“We don’t have a lot of evidence,” Coulson made the same leap Cassandra did. “We need something harder to nail him on, else no district attorney or even Stark will ever believe it.”

“We have a solid direction to give Romanoff now. Gives her a chance to dig.”

“Yeah, but how long will it take? If Stane is maneuvering the board to get Stark out, it’s so he can be put in place to take over and Stark loses his company. After that, it’s only a matter of time, because Stark’s usefulness will be over.”

“Well, we haven’t been successful getting to Stark.” Peggy admitted to feeling mildly disgruntled at that.

“No,” Coulson too sounded frustrated. “I think we should pay him another visit.”

“Back in Los Angeles?”

“Yeah, see if we can force the turtle out of his shell. You got to him the first time, would you be willing to come out again?”

She wasn’t sure why Coulson thought she would be any better in convincing Stark to cooperate than he would. “I suppose, though he hasn’t reached out to me either.”

“Perhaps the two of us could tag team. I’ll hit up his assistant again, you can target Stark, like last time. Maybe this time we will get somewhere.”

Peggy didn’t think so, and she could tell by Cassandra and Burk’s expressions they didn’t either. “So should I meet you in LA, then, Agent Coulson? I assume you will be coming directly from New Mexico.”

Both of her companions stared at her as she grinned, watching the screen at the beat of Coulson’s silence, knowing she had gotten the drop on the man. She could almost hear his eyes blinking, the only sign he normally gave when she caught him by surprise. “You are positive of that?”

“No, but you aren’t in the office because you aren’t using the video feature, and given that it took a moment to connect with you I figured you were in the field somewhere. You’d mentioned Project: Pegasus when last I saw you. Shot in the dark, really.”

“Yeah, I forget that you also have impeccable aim.” His chuckle was mild. “Yeah, I’ll come from New Mexico, I’m driving in from where I’m at. It will take me about a day. I can meet you in there on Thursday?”

She nodded, looking to Cassandra to help her with the logistics of flights and hotels. “I’ll see if there is a SHIELD flight heading that way I can hop on board.”

“I’ll connect with Romanoff to see if she can be of any use getting us into either Potts or Stark, and in the meantime she can start digging up what we need on Stane.”

Burk spoke up then. “I can get her the stuff I’ve un-encrypted, give her a direction for her to start looking. I’ll send that over to Barton to pass along.”

“And then we can nail the son-of-a-bitch,” Coulson murmured, surprisingly more heated than Peggy expected. Peggy couldn’t disagree with him. Underneath the thrill of discovery and the determination to bring him to justice lay a surprising well of grief. Howard had been her friend, the one who believed in her when no one else did. She had walked away without even saying goodbye to him, without even thinking to do so save for her involved note. The only way she had of even making that up to him - or perhaps justifying it to herself - was ensuring the man who wanted to steal his company and murder his son was locked away well before he could do anything of the sort. To think he had the audacity to call himself Howard’s closest friend to her face.

“I couldn’t agree more, Coulson,” she agreed, darkly.


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy and Coulson check in on a spy.

Peggy spent much of her flight from New York to Los Angeles reviewing the file on Daniel Sousa’s disappearance. It had taken even the formidable Maria Hill some time to pull it out of mothballs, as Howard had clearly buried it deep, wrapping it in clearance and red tape, hoping others would leave it alone. By that point, perhaps, he had gotten rather done with losing friends in mysterious ways and decided that he would rather move on than have others prod the situation and potentially get themselves killed as well. In that sense, she couldn’t blame him.

Unfortunately, the file held little in the way of clues to Peggy as to what really happened, an unexplained mystery that had gone cold decades ago. All Peggy could understand with any certainty was that Daniel had gone to a SHIELD research facility in Nevada, that he had somehow ended up back in Los Angeles, supposedly to deliver something to Howard, and was supposedly shot in a Hollywood hotel, left to float face down in the pool. Certainly, there was a police report to that effect, there were even pictures, ones Peggy trepiditiously studied carefully but which didn’t seem to offer any hard evidence. Unlike the ones of her that Daniel had poured over so long ago, these ones showed no identifying marks that hinted that it was him. Not even his left leg, the prosthetic one he wore for years, stood out. Certainly, the man had a cane similar to the one Daniel was reportedly carrying, which was a change. Even as late as 1949 he was using the crutch, as she recalled painfully from New Years Eve and his proposal. Whoever it was could have been anyone in a suit, trenchcoat and fedora, shot in the back and left floating for the authorities to find.

She couldn’t bring herself to believe it was Daniel, frankly, especially not after the ensuing medical examiner snafu. It just so happened that when SHIELD and the LAPD went to ask about the body, the Los Angeles County medical examiner had no record of it. Daniel Sousa’s was nowhere to be found. Considering the rocky and contentious relationship that already existed between SHIELD and the LAPD after both the Whitney Frost case and the subsequent attempted murder of Jack Thompson, the loss of Daniel’s body during the investigation seemed to inflame that animosity once again and the LAPD had stubbornly dug its heals in, stating that they had a body and if SHIELD had a problem with how they handled the case they could investigate it themselves. The case was dropped soon after, partly out of spite, Peggy was guessing, but mostly out of it simply being a cold case. Whatever did happen to Daniel remained a mystery with precious few leads to go on.

“We’ll be landing at HQ this time.” Her pilot, a man by the name of Justin, only slightly younger than she was, shot her a charming smile. “Agent Coulson asked me to drop you off right there.”

“All right,” Peggy replied, staring out of the window to the city below, still amazed at how it changed. Her first time there she’d flown into the city of Burbank, as she recalled, sandwiched between movie studios. Mr. Jarvis had complained of his boredom in Howard’s new living situation. He had been rather excited to have her there on a case, until the case proved so dangerous for all of them. 

How she missed him. 

That seemed to be the refrain of her life at the moment, she mused in irritable self-reflection, running her fingers over Daniel’s file. As always, she had no one to blame but herself in all of this, but it didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. She missed Edwin and his steadfast loyalty and eagerness for adventure. She missed Ana and her kindly acceptance and sense of humor even in the worst situations. What would they have made of all this with Howard’s son, their young charge? Would Edwin have mildly and quietly despaired of Tony and his antics, gently trying to extricate his charge from the worst of his missteps? Would Ana have shaken her head and scolded him over a cup of tea and a slice of cake and laughed at his wounded pride and soothed his aching heart? At least that was what Peggy would like to think, she had no idea who Tony’s mother was and how involved she was in her son’s life before her untimely death. Howard she had guessed was something less than ‘father-of-the-year’ in raising Tony, but she could well see the Jarvises as being that kindly presence every young child needs, the ones who gave young Tony the love and support he deserved, scant as it was. Perhaps he was the child that they couldn’t have thanks to Whitney Frost.

These thoughts swirled in her head as they passed by the glittering towers of downtown once again and towards the building Coulson had pointed out last time, a block in the middle of shopping strips and other low-rise office buildings. Behind the tall, functional tower of glass and concrete was a parking structure, large enough for the quinjet to comfortably land. Before they even touched down Peggy could see Coulson standing by, mirrored sunglasses on, waiting patiently for Justin to give her the all clear that she could deboard.

“Director Carter,” Coulson greeted with a pleased smile. “You have a good flight?”

“An early one, certainly.” She tried to stifle a yawn. “But pleasant enough. Justin there did well in getting us here.”

“Excellent! I hope you brought a party dress.”

That hadn’t been what she had expected to hear, but she gamely followed both Coulson and the thread of his conversion across the bridge between the building and parking structure inside. “I might have done. I have found in my long history it is well worth it to be prepared for any eventuality. That said, I wasn’t precisely expecting it. So why are we going to a party?”

“The Stark Foundation’s big gala is tonight at the Disney Concert Hall in downtown. It’s black tie, rather classy, and the media is all over it. I’m hoping to use it to corner one or both of our targets. They can’t avoid you as easily if it tends to make a scene.”

“Clever, corner them between the canapes and the champagne. That’s an old SOE maneuver I learned back in the day from Frank Broyles, the man who helped train me. I’m sure he learned it from someone else in his day.”

“Hey, why mess with the oldies but goodies,” Coulson replied cheerfully, leading them across a catwalk to the building beyond. “Thanks to your team's detective work, Romanoff has been able to finally dig up pieces. Stane has been maneuvering this behind the scenes for years, possibly decades.”

“Which is easy to do when you have a CEO who is paying little to no attention to the day-to-day running of the company.” As much as Peggy would like to lay that all on the feet of Tony, she knew that Howard was just as bad. Seeing the pieces on the board, now, Peggy had to surmise that this was exactly how Stane liked it, keeping the Starks preoccupied with either pet projects or new playthings. Tony’s exuberant lifestyle - the fast cars, faster women, and hedonistic decadence which made him the fodder of tabloid papers for two decades - likely had been fostered quietly by Stane in the attempt to keep the otherwise brilliant man preoccupied. The less he was invested in his company, the less he could pick up on what was going on behind the scenes.

“Our best guess is that Stane likely started laying the groundwork years ago, when Howard was alive. When he died, Tony was still young enough he needed a good, strong hand to help guide the ship, and there was Uncle Obadiah there to help give him a lending hand with how to make this work. Stark grew to depend on him so much I doubt he ever questioned him or what he was doing.”

Peggy recalled what Stane had said, of how he had tried to be the uncle, the loving male presence in young Tony’s life that Howard was not. “I think he has worked on this for a long time, longer than even we suspect. He planted the seeds with Tony when he was a young boy, built up the idea of being that person who was always there for him, even when his own father was too busy to be bothered. Stane has been playing the long game and now he’s trying to make the final move on it.”

“Except his plans got foiled by his own clients. I can’t imagine Stane will be terribly forgiving for their bungle of that one.”

“I have a feeling this Raza and the Ten Rings overplayed their hand. Whether Stane acts on it or not depends on how badly he wants to blow his own cover. I doubt that he will want to openly show himself for fear of revealing the truth to those paying attention.” Peggy couldn’t bring herself to believe he was that stupid. Stane had been playing too long a game for him to get carless now. Still, she had seen more powerful and desperate men make far sillier plays. Stane might surprise her.

They had wandered into the building itself, the lobby big, cool and heavily guarded, much like the New York offices were. Blessedly, no pictures of herself graced the walls inside, but one did sit on a far wall just across from a receptionist area, a painting that gave her pause as she stared at it. Peggy felt her heart sink as she instinctively clutched the strap of her briefcase over her shoulder, Daniel’s file inside.

“He was the guy who founded the LA office after all.” Coulson had come to stop beside her and study the portrait of Daniel on the wall. “I suppose they wanted to honor him.”

“Howard’s idea, I’m guessing?” Why did Howard like these ridiculous portraits of people all over the place, she wondered gloomily.

“Probably, he was the one who signed off on the commission of this building.” Coulson’s ever present, placid smile inched a fraction into the sardonic. “I think he liked to memorialize people forever like that.”

“I think he assumed everyone had an ego the size of Texas, like he did,” Peggy groused.

“I don’t know,” drawled a voice at Peggy’s right, soft, feminine, and throaty. “I think he looks rather distinguished. Can’t say you don’t have good taste, Carter.”

Peggy would have jumped and whirled on the woman out of instinct had her better senses not pinpointed Romanoff’s quiet sarcasm in an instant. The petite woman stood politely to the side, her dark, red hair pulled up in a simple, but elegant, ponytail that complimented her severe but well made suit. Uncharacteristically, she wore a pair of heels so thin and tall, Peggy was shocked to see her walking in them at all, let alone with the elegance and grace that marked everything Romanoff did. They certainly added to her scant height, which was likely why she wore them. She only arched one perfect eyebrow at Peggy, clearly aware of the effect she had. “I’m just saying, he’s got a particular look about him.”

“I know what you meant.” Peggy didn’t meant to sound waspish, but couldn’t help it. 

The other woman smiled, mostly at Coulson who she genuinely looked pleased to see. “How was New Mexico?”

“Hot,” he muttered. Peggy could just see the hint of warm brown on his skin, evidence of his time in the sun. “How is working at SI?”

“I have to admit if I ever get bored working for you I think I have a future working contract law for them. Also, I really enjoy the benefits.”

“Those massages Hill is always carrying on about that worth it?”

“You should try one, Coulson. Kick back, take a load off, take a vacation somewhere and get one. A little rest and relaxation would suit you well.”

“I can rest when I’m dead,” he muttered dryly at Romanoff’s cheeky smile. “What do you got?”

“Come on up, I’ll show you. Carter hit on the jackpot.”

Peggy couldn’t tell if Romanoff sounded surprised or not by that. She could never tell with this woman and thus could never decide if she should be offended or not. She followed behind, however, as the other agent led them to the elevators, swiping a card that allowed them access to go up.

“I’ve commandeered a spot here for now,” Romanoff murmured by way of explanation. “Office thinks I’m downtown filing some paperwork with the courts.”

“And what about the paperwork,” Coulson queried, speaking out loud the question that Peggy had wondered as well, but wasn’t going to ask.

Romanoff chuckled. “It pays to make friends with people in the office, Coulson. Not everything is about spying and global security threats. Gretchen is one of the legal assistants here at SHIELD, she’s got that covered. She’s been handling the finer points of walking me through this job.”

Smart, Peggy thought to herself, and it showed a side of Romanoff she had yet to see. Thus far, Peggy had only been subjected to the other woman’s cold nature and obvious distrust. Sharon had noted she’d had a very different experience with her, and it was clear she was friendly with Coulson and close with Barton. She made friends with random office workers in the organization, which showed she at least recognized their value and wanted to be friendly. So...why was she hostile towards Peggy?

“Come in,” Romanoff entered the ubiquitous work space of the standard SHIELD empty office, the sort that Peggy was learning was a mainstay for the often mobile and the never permanently fixed agents. Much like Peggy’s own space in New York, it had screens for sharing information and a window that looked out over the spires of the downtown skyline. Unlike her own, though, it did feel transient, nothing personal about it. It was clear it was used specifically for moments like these and nothing else.

“I’ve been digging through what I can get on SI looking for Stane’s fingerprints.” Natasha seated herself and began pulling up data as Coulson and Peggy did the same. “Carter’s right, Stane’s been at this a long time and he’s not stupid. He’s cultivated multiple avenues by which to smuggle weapons, primarily through more legitimate fronts. Most of the weapon sales look like they are legal on the books, sales to known foreign governments approved by the US State Department. The illegal stuff is after market, usually a shipment ear marked for someone else that mysteriously goes missing.”

“Like say a truck load of weapons meant for NATO forces in Afghanistan.”

“Yep,” Romanoff typed quickly, pulling up a panoply of different files and invoicess. “From what I’ve pieced together Stane primarily had two methods for creating his network. First was his extensive ‘old-boys’ network, as I like to call it, primarily made up of those who had a foot in an accepted government and was just amoral enough to want to make a bit of money on the side. Often they were either low level bureaucrats on the take or the high-flying men behind the scenes who had no compulsion with funding and arming foreign uprising to service their own political policies. It’s a high risk, high reward sort of venture, but you get one nosy reporter or an intelligence agent who just so happens to stumble on it and the whole thing is blown to hell.”

“An intelligence agent such as yourself?” Coulson’s pointed look was amused and Romanoff shrugged smuggly.

“Hey, you put me on this, and honestly, I’m not the only one looking. Since Stark’s disappearance people have been asking questions. I know of at least one reporter with ties to Stark who has been hiring locals in Gulmira for information. Stane’s little operation on this side is about to be busted wide open, and it’s not going to look good for Stark Industries when it does, especially given Stark’s declaration to the press about how he was ending production.”

That was a sloppy maneuver. Peggy wouldn’t have expected it of Stane, not given how careful he had been, until it hit her why. “Stane’s allowing it because he can push it off on Stark as head of the company. He can quickly dive for cover, allow the CEO take the hit, and use that as fodder to further undermine Stark and push him out.”

It was ridiculously subtle and Romanoff nodded firmly as Peggy’s connection. “That’s what I’m thinking. The press will have a field day with it, the CEO who vowed to end weapons production so terrorists can’t get them finds out his company has been selling them under his nose. The board is already screaming for Stark’s blood, this will just finish him.”

The idea of the lengths Stane went to in undermining Tony both appalled and angered Peggy, but she had to admit it was rather brilliant. She couldn’t fault him for how well laid out it all was. “You said Stane had two methods in passing weapons.”

“Yeah, the other is the one Burk stumbled on. That is a more direct, hands on method. When the technology was finally around to support it, Stane built up an online presence in order to take direct orders and handle business behind the scenes. It’s more hidden than his gentleman’s network and easier to manage. He probably built this as the back up when and if the first method blew up, or if he wanted to get out of it to look more respectable. I’m guessing it wasn’t just him, though, he has a whole team working on this, reaching out through the dark web protocols, connecting with potential buyers and working the existing Stark Industries distribution network to get orders to those who pay for it. All the money is funneled through shady channels on the dark web and distributed to those he’s got on his private payroll.”

Coulson was pleased to hear this. “You got a list of names for us.”

“I should finish it up within the week and it’s all yours, boss.” Romanoff smirked, nodding to the screen. “I won’t lie, they were very discrete and thorough. Most all of it was hidden under legitimate transactions, complete with contracts and invoices should anyone look into it.”

It was impressive the lengths he was willing to go to to hide it, but then again Stane had operational control of the company for decades. He could build up whatever he needed to accomplish what he wanted. Given free reign, he’d done what he wanted without either Howard or Tony ever the wiser. “What about Tony’s signature on those contracts?”

“If you believe it, electronic signature.” Romanoff looked particularly appalled by that. “Legal had it set up because Stark is notoriously difficult to pin down to sign anything. When he is available, he often avoids it so he agreed to it. The problem is they don’t have any other means of authentication, so you can draw the line from there.”

“How in the hell hasn’t anyone made off with giant contracts or embezzled an obscene amount of money from them yet,” Coulson wondered aloud, clearly as flabbergasted as Peggy was by the lack of oversight inherent in the company’s systems.

“Hey, I’m still working on it. If someone has, I’ll find it.”

“Stark will owe you for the service.”

Romanoff played Coulson’s observation off gently. “Call it a step towards his reformation. I suspect that when this breaks, it’s going to be a rude awakening for him. For a man who doesn’t trust easily, the worst sort of betrayal is the kind from someone you actually did trust. That is something I do understand. Best get him a list and let him clean house once Stane is removed from the equation.”

The other woman’s compassion took Peggy by surprise. Barton had said she was a good person. It was he first chink in the armor that Romanoff wrapped herself in that Peggy had ever seen. “What you have is more than enough to pin Stane if we can get it to Stark.”

“Ahh, therein lies the rub,” Romanoff acknowledged, leaning back into her chair and folding her arms. “Stark literally hasn’t been seen outside of his home, save for the occasional breakneck and highly illegal spin up and down the PCH, since he got back. Seriously, people are saying he’s less Howard Stark’s son and more Howard Hughes'.”

“Unless he’s holed up in a Las Vegas motel looking like the Abominable Snowman, I doubt it.” Coulson shook his head even as Peggy wondered what that even meant. “We think that Stark’s been working on something, likely improving on whatever he created to get out of Afghanistan.”

“A rocket pack?” Romanoff looked downright dismissive at the idea, causing Peggy to swallow her initial impulse to bristle.

“Not even Howard could get that working. I think it was more advanced than that. What and how, I don’t know, but given what little we saw in his escape, it’s more likely a suit of armor.”

That made Romanoff decidedly less doubtful. “Stark’s first love was computer science and robotics. I suppose in theory he could be working on something.”

“Any hints,” queeried Coulson.

“Not around SI, no. They’ve been focused on the shift out of weapons manufacturing and what that means, the hit they will take and the restructuring to follow.” A hint of a grimace flickered over her features. “No one cares as much when their job is on the line, and he’s not been around the building at all. Frankly, I think Legal is just pleased that for once in his life he’s quite and out of the way and they don’t have to cover the corporation’s ass for his antics.”

Wasn’t that a familiar refrain, Peggy mused. “Do you think he will be at the gala tonight?”

Romanoff frowned doubtfully. “That, I don’t know. Potts will be, she was the point person organizing it. Anyone who is anyone is going to be there, so if you want to rub elbows with any movie stars, Coulson, you owe me.”

“I’m shocked you got tickets.”

At that prompting, Romanoff reached into the desk and pulled out an envelope she passed to Coulson. “I promised to give language lessons to the kid of the woman running the guest list. He’s struggling with AP French and she wants him going to Stanford.”

“You keep up with that good-heartedness, Nat, and you may just thaw your heart,” Coulson teased, tucking the tickets inside his jacket.

“Not a chance,” she replied, cheerfully. “You two kids go out and have yourself a good time, but not too good of one. I don’t know what Captain America would say about his best girl partying too hard with another man.”

It was as if Romanoff was trying to bait her now. Anger and annoyance from months of small, passive aggressive slights roared up, but she bit it off, instead plastering on a cheerful, if sharp, smile of her own. “If you think I’m that prudish, Agent Romanoff, clearly you didn’t read my file hard enough.”

Far from irking the other woman, it only seemed to amuse her, something calculating flickering for a moment, before being filed away. “Hmmm, guess I didn’t. Guess I better give it another look. You two kids have fun.”

Why did Peggy have the feeling she was being played?

Coulson, sensing the cat and mouse game before him, rose with a warning glare at Romanoff. “Let us know if anything else pops up on Stane or Stark. I’ve got rooms for us at the Biltmore on the company dime, so we will be close by.” He shrugged, cutting an awkward glance to Peggy standing beside him. I figured that would be a much nicer proposition for preparing for a gala than trying to change in the women’s restroom.”

“You have no idea the places I’ve had to slip into heels and stockings at. Until you’ve had to set pin curls by firelight and hope your head didn’t freeze, you’ve not done true undercover work.”

“I don’t think that was ever going to be a problem for me,” Coulson teased, running a hand across his short-cropped, thinning hair. “We’ll be in town for a while, at least till we can get to Stark. I don’t think he’s going to let us in that easy.”

“I don’t think he’ll let you in at all, but good luck,” Romanoff called cheerfully as they made their way out. “Have fun!”

Peggy glanced towards Coulson who only held up a warning hand. “I don’t know with Natasha. If you want to figure it out, I suggest talking to her.”

Peggy grimaced. That was not a bull she wanted to take by the horns.


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy goes to a gala.

The last time she’d looked this glamorous, she’d walked away from yet another marriage proposal and decided to jump forward with a stranger into time. Despite the modern hairstyle, with its sleek layers that framed her face, she’d still managed something of the old curls and waves, pinning the concoction up neatly on the sides, a look that came so easy to her it was practically muscle memory. Her dark hair was an elegant froth of curls kept together with more pins than she’d worn in months. With her make-up, slightly more glamorous than what she normally managed, and with some of the simple diamonds she’d inherited from her grandmother, she felt as if she might just pass as someone who belonged at this modern-day, elegant party.

Peggy hadn’t lied to Coulson, she’d learned from her years in the SSR and days as a spy that one prepares for any sort of eventuality, and she’d of course packed away the sort of clothes one might need for anything, be it breaking into someone’s house or attending a fancy gala filled with glittering people. The dress she’d carefully packed was simple, tea length and midnight colored, off the shoulder in elegant silk. Juan had lectured her about finding fabrics and looks that enhanced her figure. As he had said “God blessed you a lot, girl, you need to flaunt what he gave you!” This was a dress that certainly did that, while still managing to be modest enough she didn’t feel like she would stand out in a room full of other she was trying to blend with. Still...it was a nice dancing dress, one she’d have worn in the 1940’s...perhaps to go dancing, had she been given the chance. Perhaps, should Fury’s search teams be lucky, she would get to try it out...soon.

That promise put a flush in her cheeks as she slipped into her most trusty pumps, a pair she’d brought from the past with her. More durable and sturdy than the modern stilettos should she need them in a fight, she at least knew they would hold up. She adjusted her stocking lines and smoothed her skirt, making sure her favorite sidearm was there, tucked underneath in the thigh holster Sharon had gifted her, more sleek and modern and more able to easily hide her weapon under her clothing. She gathered her clutch purse with her ticket, her modern badge and ID, and checked the compartment she had inside for her extra ammo, before slipping in her lipstick and a compact. She felt as prepared and armored as she was going to get.

Coulson had texted her to meet him downstairs in the hotel lounge, an elegant bar area by the lobby. Peggy made her way down to the frankly stunning open area, a vision of golden light and crystal, with hand-carved wooden inlays in the ceiling and frescos that looked like a masterpiece. Honestly, it was the sort of elegance she would have expected Howard to throw money at, not SHIELD, and she found herself pausing long enough to stare at the gorgeous ceiling before finding Coulson in the elegant lounge.

He was sitting patiently, an ever vigilant agent, eyes roaming the area, checking on exits. Still, even he did a double take as Peggy walked up, only just managing not to make a fool of himself. “Errr...Director Carter.”

Ahh, she had forced him back to his earliest formality with her. “I take it them the outfit is a success then?”

“I...uh…” He floundered, clearly searching for something to say and falling back on an embarrassed smile and a simple “Yes!”

“Good, as I don’t want to stand out as an agent tonight.”

Coulson ears were a bit pink, still a bit thunderstruck, but in a kindly and courtly way. “Well, I must say that you are very lovely and that is perhaps unprofessional, but I felt it should be said.”

Peggy could only chuckle lightly at him. “You do realize I’m older than this fabulous hotel by at least two years.”

“And I would say you both have weathered it well.” He held out an arm to her, dressed simply in his ubiquitous black suit and tie, only slightly shined up for the event. “If I may say so, Director, I can see why Captain Rogers was so taken with you.”

That did make her smile, recalling her private hopes from earlier. “He does owe me a date when he wakes up.”

“He’s a lucky man to have you here waiting for him.”

They both were lucky, Peggy privately mused.

Coulson walked out of the sumptuous lobby and to the mild sidewalk outside. “I had HQ here send a car round to drive us there. It’s not far, but it’s the expectation of it all.”

“Of course,” Peggy replied as a black sedan pulled up - really, did SHIELD have anything that wasn’t dark and obvious - as one of the hotel attendants opened the door for them. Coulson handed her inside before settling himself. Once the door closed, the driver turned to great them both.

“I'm Agent Solarzano, Director Carter, Coulson.” He was a large, beefy man who met their greeting with a stoic nod. “I’ll be running the main communications and security for you tonight. Do you have your communication devices?”

Coulson waived his right wrist. “Like I go anywhere without it, I learned my lesson.”

“I remember,” the other agent flashed a grin, reaching into the middle console and passing a packet to Peggy. “Director, these are our on the ground communication devices. You’ll want one in. The small nub goes into your ear, it’s a bluetooth headphone so you can hear all communication. The clip is a microphone. You’ll want to place it somewhere unobtrusive.”

Peggy tried to think what would be unobtrusive as she worked the tiny bits of plastic out of the little pouch. The small ear device was simple enough. She slipped that into her left ear where it nestled, a bit uncomfortable, but mostly out of sight.

“There’s a button on the top you can press to have it go on. I’ve already keyed it to our frequency.”

“Right,” Peggy muttered, considering her decolletage briefly before slipping the clip inside to rest at the junction of her rather sturdy, strapless bra. Both men were gentlemen enough to look away as she managed it neatly. “How do I turn this on?”

“When you press the button on the ear piece it activates the mic,” Salarzano explained, nodding to a touch screen console in the middle of the dashboard. “I can monitor your communications here. If you need me, I’ll be parked nearby and can send in a full SHIELD team within minutes to give you backup.”

“Is all this really necessary for a party?” Peggy asked this knowing full well she was walking in the door fully armed, and she could guess Coulson was as well.

“Stane is an unknown factor and he knows we are SHIELD. He may get suspicious and do something drastic. I can’t exclude that from the realm of possibility.”

He was right, but she doubted Stane would do something so openly dangerous. “I have a feeling the press would have a field day if we called the entire infantry inside.”

“Hopefully we won’t have to,” Coulson replied, glibly, his eternally bland smile fixed in place once more. “Better get going if we hope to find spots to catch them.”

Coulson wasn’t wrong, the venue wasn’t far from the hotel, but the streets surrounding it had been blocked to all but guests, vendors and their vehicles. They sat in a long line of other cars attempting to get to the main drop off point as a small crowd of reporters in gowns and suits all shouted and took pictures from behind thin tapes of stanchions. It looked like mild chaos, but the security around it looked as collected as one could expect. Peggy had not ever been to events like this before, and the press in this day and age was almost a different beast than the ones she had been used to around Steve during the war. Perhaps Howard could have spoken to a different experience.

They pulled up, finally, in front of the area that guests were stepping out at. Agent Solarzano turned one last time to regard them both. “Remember, I’ll be nearby. Just call me when you need me to come up.”

“Got it,” Coulson confirmed, glancing at Peggy as one of the security members, trim in a black coat, opened his door. “Ready?”

“If I’m this dressed up, I better damn well be,” she grumbled, cheekily.

They stepped out onto a red carpet that blanketed the sidewalks and steps leading up to the venue, cushioning their steps, as on either side people with cameras took pictures. They were not anyone well known, thus no one called to them demanding they stop to pose as they did other people walking up to the giant, imposing building. Peggy got a good look at this Disney Concert Hall as she took Coulson’s arm, a shining monstrosity of stainless steel that glowed with lights in the waning sunset of Southern California. It looked more like great curls of silver ribbon or some sort of giant, frothy lady's hat than it did a true building, and so foreign to Peggy’s eyes she thought it rather ugly indeed.

Coulson seemed to read her thoughts. “Yeah, it’s not for everyone. I was out here when they were building it. The joke was that the architect must have gotten inspiration from balling up a wad of aluminum foil and calling it good.”

“It’s...different.” Peggy shook her head as they stepped up towards the lobby and a waiting attendant who asked for their tickets. She pulled hers from her purse as Coulson snagged his from his inside breast pocket. The young woman nodded, held each in front of a device that looked not unlike the sort that Peggy saw in the modern stores. When she seemed satisfied she smiled and waved them in. “Enjoy your evening.”

They wandered inside to the lobby, already filled with people murmuring among themselves as in one corner a band played softly near a dance floor set up among the many round tables. The flowers were sparse but elegant on immaculate linens, highlighted by candles that added a soft glow to the already golden space, paneled in dark rosy brown woods, looking dreamy and romantic. In fact it looked far better in here than it did on the outside of the building.

“A rather swank crowd here tonight,” Coulson observed, eyeing the attendees with the attention and care Peggy was not. “I see no less than two US Congressman and one Senator, most of the local representatives and City Hall types, nearly everyone who has won an Oscar in the last ten years, and...I believe Oprah?

Since Peggy had no idea who that person was, she assumed they were important. “You said this was for the Stark Foundation, correct?”

“Yeah, specifically the Maria Stark Foundation, founded by Tony’s mother.” He nodded to a large sign standing near the entrance. It had a black and white photograph of a lovely, dark-haired woman with a quote she guessed was from her. On initial glance, she looked nothing like the son she left behind, but upon further inspection she could see hints of the mother in the son; the shape of the nose, the shape of her eyes, the curve of her pleasant smile. Her words, printed in black script inside of a white rectangle said simply “I feel it’s the responsibility of those of whom life has given every chance to give every chance to those who haven’t been so blessed. If we don’t take the responsibility to help those who need it, who will?”

Perhaps Peggy could see more of this woman in her son than she thought, for certainly that hadn’t been a Howard sentiment, at least not the Howard she knew. Not that he wasn’t generous, and he certainly wasn't a monster, but selflessness wasn’t innate to Howard. Perhaps that was why he had fallen in love with her, the woman who was all the things he wasn't.

“You never got to meet Howard Stark’s wife, did you?” Coulson had caught her studying the sign.

“No,” Peggy sighed, wishing she had. She would have liked to know the woman who managed to capture Howard’s heart. “They met years after I disappeared. I’m not surprised, frankly, I never expected Howard to ever settle down.”

“She seemed like a good sort, from what I heard. The foundation is her legacy, Stark works hard to keep it going in her honor. It funds all sorts of projects, everything from programs to help in economically underserved areas to educational programs for students in low-income or inner city school districts. Tonight it’s a gala for the music and arts programs that reach out to the youth in the county, hence why it’s here at the concert hall. Stark’s mother was a patron of the arts, quite a gifted pianist from what I understand.”

Another thing she couldn’t have imagined from someone marrying Howard. “Funny as her husband couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket if he strapped it to his hand.”

“He did much singing then?” Coulson was clearly fishing for stories and Peggy obliged with the slightest of exasperated eyerolls at the memory.

“You get a bottle of whiskey into him, Dugan, and Morita and they would caterwaul so loudly they would scare the Germans away.” She smiled fondly, remembering the night she even disappeared. “If there was a piano and show girls at a party he was usually there attempting to sing.”

Coulson loosed a rare, genuine smile. “Maybe that’s why Maria complimented him.”

“Maybe,” Peggy agreed, casting one glance back at the photograph before wandering with Coulson into the crowd. Buffet tables lined far walls, and an open bar took up one whole part of the space, the top of it glowing from light contained on the inside. People talked and mixed as couples swayed on the floor together.

“I’ll case the perimeter,” Peggy murmured as the passed by the bar. “Why don’t you go ahead and see if you can spot Potts or Stark. Avoid Stane if possible.”

“On it,” he muttered back, peeling off to move to the bar while she wandered towards the fringes, eyeing the room speculatively. She knew few of the faces that Coulson recognized, though she thought she recognized at least one person she’d seen on one of Sharon’s ridiculous cooking shows. On the flip side, she knew none of them would recognize her and she used that to her advantage as she slipped around the clusters of people. Outside of the occasional, indifferent glance - or sometimes more appreciative stare - she didn’t note anyone who seemed to be terribly interested in her either.

Waiters wandered the crowd with trays of wine, clearly not on reserve like other drinks were, and Peggy grabbed a glass of something red before settling down at a table with eye lines to the front, to the dance floor, and to the bar where Coulson chatted amiably with the bartender there, likely looking for information. No one else had claimed the space, and so Peggy made herself at home, watching the room while her glass sat, barely touched.

“A woman as beautiful as you shouldn’t be sitting by herself at an event like this.”

Internally, Peggy sighed. She should have seen it coming, honestly, and didn’t. She was getting rusty. She plastered on a polite smile and pulled up the most bland, American accent she could. “Waiting for my date.”

She turned to the fellow trying to ingratiate himself with her, a handsome man, with the sort of careless good looks and plastic charm that said he either was in the film industry or some other field that required a wink and a smile to get what you wanted - investments, maybe? Whoever he was, she could practically see the superciliousness ooze off of him as he took an unwelcome seat beside her. “Well, I’m sure that he’s on his way. You know how LA traffic is, everyone is late for everything here. The name is Wade. What’s yours?”

“Becky,” Peggy dropped easily, pulling the name from her own personal catalogue of them. She’d always remembered it as being one of Barnes’ sisters’ names, very American sounding. 

Her unwanted new friend took it all in stride, holding a hand out to her, well-manicured and smooth. “Pleased to meet you. Are you a donor or…”

“My date is,” she cut over him, emphasizing that she was expecting someone. “He heads up his family’s trust, made a mint in the oil industry out here back in the day and he’s the one great-grandkid left to be responsible with the money while all the rest blow through it.”

“Ahh,” he shrugged, a curious, predatory look in his eye. “Well, trust fund babies are the best. No having to work for their dollar.”

“And is that what you do...Wade, was it?”

“Sure!” His megawatt grin was a bit too tight and sickly. “Work in real estate and development, have done a few deals with Stark, actually. That fancy palace he lives in up in Point Dume? I helped broker that back in the day.”

He really must think Peggy stupid to buy that line. She knew the property had been Howard’s back in the 40’s just when they started breaking up the ranch land to turn into Malibu proper. “Oh, really? That must have cost a fortune to obtain.”

“Yeah, but Stark’s good for it. But, you know, because of that I come to these events to network, build up my client list, get my name out there.”

“And not to give to a good cause?” Peggy innocently arched one eyebrow upwards, dripping naivete. “I mean, that’s why we’re here tonight, right, to give to the Stark Foundation.”

She’d caught him out and he was scrambling, blinking furious over his slightly wilting charm. “Err...well, yeah, sure, of course, donate to help kids get...violins and stuff, I’m all for that. My kids play piano...I think.”

Wasn’t he a piece of work, Peggy mused, glancing across the room again, half afraid this idiot would make her miss their marks. “Oh, you’re married?” She could care less, but hoped that it made him uncomfortable enough to move along.

“Was...she is my ex now, but you know, kids...they are great. So, about your date, do I happen to know of him?”

“Mmmm, I don’t know, he keeps a low profile.” Peggy’s eyes flickered through the crowd, she hoped in a way that suggested she was looking for her imaginary trust fund knight.

“And is he interested in perhaps diversifying his trust portfolio, maybe?”

If she weren’t busy, and if he weren’t so pathetically annoying, Peggy would have felt sorry for the man. “I don’t think so. We really are just here to put a good face out there and help the foundation.”

“Of course!” He held up his whiskey glass in salute. “To the foundation and all the great things it will do!”

The bud in her ear crackled, making her jump ever so slightly, the sound so close and clear she just did hold on to her composure. “Carter, I got a visual on Stark, heading in the door now and coming right at me.”

Peggy glanced towards the entrance as heads turned and people called to a swaggering Tony Stark, dressed to the nines in a tuxedo, trimmed and clean cut and a far cry from shabby, broken man everyone kept suspecting that he was. He made a beeline for the bar and for Coulson, who kept his composure as Stark sauntered up to place an order.

“I see Stark finally made it,” Wade beside her observed and she realized she’d telegraphed who she had been watching, or at the least Wade like everyone else observed him come in with shock and surprise. “I didn’t think he would make it.”

“Isn’t this his party?” Peggy kept up the innocent shtick, knowing he’d of course feel the need to explain the obvious to her. Men always did have that habit.

“Oh, yeah, he rarely comes to these things...well, not sober at least. And he’s not been out at all since they got him back from whatever hellhole he’d be shoved in. Poor guy, used to go partying with him back in the day. Thing like that can mess with your head. They say PTSD. I hear that’s why his own board is trying to give him the boot.”

“Isn’t that a shame,” she hummed sympathetically, eyeing him as Coulson made his introductions. Stark listened in mild boredom as Coulson played his straight and to the point SHIELD agent angle. Peggy sighed. As much as she liked Coulson, she knew that you never could get through to a Stark that way, he’d just stop listening. Sure enough, she could see him focusing on something else to the side of the dance floor, a woman, tall, copper haired and in a silver, satin halter dress, with a back so low it was nearly scandalous. It was sexy and inviting and just the type to catch his eye.

“Heh, would you look at that! Always suspected that was what was going on between those two.” Wade snorted into his amber whiskey taking a healthy pull.

“What’s going on with whom?” Peggy had yet to make out a face, but clearly Stark knew her as he smoothly placed a hand to her lower back and then led her out onto the floor for a dance, all aloof charm and witty banter.

“His secretary...assistant...whatever, Ms. Potts.”

Now that he mentioned it, it clicked with Peggy that of course that would be her, with her long, red gold hair. She’d not seen the formidable woman outside of her work uniform and she’d not managed to catch anything more than the back of her head. “You think those two are sleeping together?”

“Tony? He gets more ass in this town than a proctologist does, I don’t see how he’s not. Honestly, people have said it for years. I mean...look at her, how could he not. Besides, why else would she put up with half of his shit if she wasn’t.”

Peggy wanted to shoot back that perhaps she was doing it out of loyalty, out of love of the work, out of respect for her boss, any number of other things that didn’t include the tired old trope of the boss sleeping with his secretary so she could work her way to the top. “You seriously believe she would do that?”

“Hell, I would if I were in her shoes. Don’t get me wrong, Potts is smart, too smart to be doing his laundry and answering his messages. Either he pays her stupid sums of money or he’s fucking her senseless, but whatever it is, it works, because she protects him and keeps everything running.”

“Loyal, you say?” She watched the two of them sway together. It was clear they were close, the way he smiled at her, disarming and vulnerable, her patient but amused expression. There was electricity in the space between them and it was clear that Wade wasn’t wrong. Even if he wasn’t sleeping with his assistant, there was a part of him that clearly wished he was, and perhaps a part of her too.

“Yeah, like a dog, a vicious attack dog. Anyway, I figure one of these days they’ll just run off together somewhere and she’ll get half of his money. If she does, good for her.”

“Hmm, yes.” Peggy glanced towards Coulson at the bar. “You know, I think I see my date now. It’s been a pleasure, Wade.”

He looked somewhat crestfallen to see her go, or perhaps he was merely staring at the decolletage of her low cut dress. “Well, I hope to see you around...Becky?”

“That’s right!” She flashed him a bright smile as she rose, making her way to Coulson as Stark and Potts made their way off the dance floor, off to a set of stairs that led up to another floor of guests and drinks.

“Did you get him pinned down at all,” Peggy asked as she wandered up, expectant.

“No, he blew me off fairly quickly,” Coulson replied, frustrated. “He caught sight of Potts and beelined for her.”

“I didn’t see her until they were dancing.” She was ashamed to admit that. Her skills were slipping. “They are upstairs now. Do we want to wander up there to catch them?”

“Stark’s too canny for that. My guess is he is up there with Potts right now hoping to avoid us all together.”

“If we camp out nearby, he can’t necessarily escape. Remember, pin them in and they have no other choice but to talk.”

Coulson shot her an arched smile over a glass of soda water. “How often did that actually work?”

“I managed to pen in the Duke of Kent for a nice long chat once. As it so happened he wasn’t a secret Nazi sympathizer, he was just sleeping with one.”

Coulson choked on his water, slightly, eyes wide. “You do realize how insane it is that you are standing here, in this place and time, telling me that story.”

“I suppose it is,” Peggy smiled, slipping her arm through his. “Let’s go up and see what we find.”

Up the stairs there were more tables and couples sitting away from the busier glitter of the main floor below. They wandered till they spied a balcony area that overlooked the street corner down below, Stark and Potts murmuring together briefly, so close that Peggy nearly gave the very supercilious Wade downstairs the benefit of the doubt. Then Stark pulled away, discombobulated, smile flashing, before making for the door, looking back at his assistant inquiringly.

Coulson glanced to her. “We can pin him now as he comes out. They’re on a balcony with nowhere to go.”

Peggy had another idea. “How about when he comes out, you pin Potts, I’ll tail Stark. Maybe I’ll have better luck with him one son one.”

“Good plan,” Coulson said, turning away as Stark swaggered in the door. Peggy did the same so he didn’t see her face in the crowd. Waiting till Stark was just past her, Peggy fell in several steps behind as he practically danced down the steps, so fast that even in her most reliable of pumps she was hard pressed to keep up. By the time she got to the bottom, Stark was already at the bar, making an order. Heading straight to him was a blonde, prettyish, hair elegantly piled up, none of which matched the pointedly resolute look she had as she slid up to Stark.

Too far to hear what the woman said, all Peggy saw was the woman produce pictures which she held up to Stark. Whatever it was, it shocked him enough that he frowned at the woman in confusion, even as she was holding a device up and clearly making demands. Stark either didn’t hear her or it was to stunned to reply. He turned on his heel and stalked off towards the front doors.

Pressing a finger to her ear, Peggy watched as the blonde followed several steps behind. She fell in several steps behind her as she pressed a finger up to her ear. When the telltale beep sounded, she spoke, low and quietly, towards the microphone nestled between her breasts. “Coulson, Stark’s on the move, out the front. I’ll follow as long as I can.”

He didn’t answer, but she couldn’t imagine he hadn’t heard. She carefully maneuvered through the guests with all the grace she could manage in her dress, following behind at a leisurely pace. She didn’t wish to be so fast as to be obvious or too slow as to lose them. Thankfully, she didn’t have to go much farther to go, as when she reached the top of the stairs she saw Stark standing in front of a wall of reporters, cameras snapping, talking quietly - and intensely - to an ever smiling Obadiah Stane. The blonde woman stood some distance away, watching. Peggy slid her phone out of her purse and made like several of the people out there were doing, flipping through it as she read nothing in particular. With half an eye, she watched the proceedings below as Stane turned Stark to face the cameras with a hearty laugh, posing for the requisite pictures, then murmuring to him before wandering off to talk with reporters.

Stark remained for long moments, posing for the cameras. Even the blonde got bored and left. Without a word, Stark wandered past the line of screaming reporters to a valet who ran off, Peggy presumed to fetch Stark’s driver or vehicle. He was alone and now was as good a time as any to pin him down. Slipping her phone in her purse once more, she had taken only a few strides when a booming voice somewhere down the stairs called her name.

“Miss Carter!”

 _Shit,_ she silently cursed. She’d been made.


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy has an uncomfortable conversation.

Cursing silently, Peggy pivoted to smile at Obadiah Stane as he wandered up, looking admittedly dashing in his tuxedo with its white scarf. He was always ridiculously presentable and neat, Peggy noted to herself as he climbed the steps to her. He couldn’t possibly ever look discombobulated or not put together, not if he wanted to set himself up as the sober, clear-thinking, steady new leader for Stark Industries. She smiled graciously before glancing towards where Stark stood in the distance, the valet returning with a ridiculously loud sports car, grinning as he climbed out of it and accepted a tip from Stark. Peggy bit back the expletive before turning again to Stane.

“Hoping to catch Tony?” 

Stane was perceptive and Peggy saw no reason to deny it. “Oh, yes, I wanted to check in on him, see how he was doing.”

“He’s...getting there, I guess.” Stane’s pleasant expression grew a bit sad as Stark pulled down the street at nearly full speed, his engine roaring. “Tonight was a big night for him, coming out, seeing folks. It was a good try, but I think it got too much for him.”

Peggy would give Stane this, he was good, very good, spinning his excuses, painting a picture to the public of poor mad, sad Tony Stark, who he worries so about, even while presenting the picture of Stark’s opposite. He admittedly wasn’t half bad at it selling it and had she been anyone else, she might have. She was starting to see why Howard would have liked Stane. “Well, when you see him next, tell him I said hello and that SHIELD is still hoping to chat with him.”

“If SHIELD thinks they can convince Tony any better than the US military can, they got another thing coming. Tony’s adamant about the weapons thing, and till I can talk him out of it, he’s not budging.”

Peggy danced around that roadblock easily enough. “We weren’t interested in asking Mr. Stark about his weapons. We wanted to discuss what he went through with him, that’s all.”

Mild irritation flickered beneath the charming facade. “He made his statements months ago, didn’t he?”

“That he did, to the US Military.”

“See, there you go. Couldn’t you get that from Rhodey?”

He hadn’t forgotten that Rhodes was the one that approached them. Likely, he still resented it. “As accommodating as Colonel Rhodes is, we’ve come on new information that we feel we should bring to Mr. Stark’s attention. I’m hoping to get him to chat with us, soon.”

“Ahh, well, Tony’s been seeing few people now at days, even me. You might have a chance if you get on Pepper’s calendar, though, but that’s if you convince her.”

“We are working on that.” Peggy pulled on all of the grace and poise her mother had tried to drill into her in her youth to meet Stane’s politeness with her own. He might have the press and even much of Stark Industries eating out of his hand, but he hadn’t been tutored in etiquette in Amanda Carter’s drawing room. “We’ve had word of just who took Mr. Stark and why they were interested in him.”

“Really? I heard from Rhodes they were just insurgents, the sort that they’ve been dealing with for years in the region.”

“He’s not completely wrong,” Peggy temporized, considering her options. It would be a gamble telling Stane what she knew, but in doing so it might force his hand somewhat. He could become reckless, do something rash, and leave the door open for them to follow. “There is a group known as the Ten Rings, one of several such groups, but they are well funded and well connected and seemed to have a particular interest in Mr. Stark’s skill set. Our guess is that they searched through their allies to find Stark’s movements so they could kidnap him.”

Stane’s facade didn’t even drop an inch. “And do they pose a threat now?”

“Perhaps,” she lifted one white shoulder. “But then I don’t have clearance to tell you that.”

That earned an honest chuckle out of him. “Clever, I can see why you sit in the position you do.”

“Oh, well, that, I just happened to be the only one willing take on the difficult sort of jobs. I don’t know how clever that makes me.”

Stane nodded in understanding as he glanced back towards the concert hall. “So how did you get an invitation to a swank party like this?”

“People in Mr. Stark’s office I assume.” Peggy spooled out a plausible enough story for him. “The tickets were passed on to us with a brief note of gratitude for the work put into finding Mr. Stark. I thought it was a gesture of thanks from him personally.”

“Perhaps it was. Tony is always so unpredictable in these things, knowing him he did it on a whim and didn’t want anyone to know he did.” His blue eyes slid back down to hers. “Would you be willing to indulge an old man, Miss Carter, and perhaps join me for a dance?”

By all rights, it wasn’t the worst plan in the world. After all, the one thing she did remember from her earliest training was that men were always seeking to show off to a lady while they had her in their arms. But something about the idea with this man, one who she knew had worked to undermine her friend’s company and tried to have his son killed, turned her cold.

“I find, Mr. Stane, I tend to be a poor dancer without the right sort of partner,” she rejoined politely. “Perhaps a drink instead?”

He inclined his bald head at that. “All right, drink it is! You the wine sort of lady?”

“I’d take a bourbon now, since you are asking.”

“Ahh, a woman after my own taste.” He offered his arm. Peggy took it, not wanting to be rude, carefully navigating the steps back up. “I have to admit, Miss Carter, I find you very intriguing.”

“Is that so?” She kept her tone light and teasing, despite the creeping dread his words engendered. “Why in particular, Mr. Stane?’

He gave a cavalier shrug inside of his great coat. “You confronted me directly, outwitted my assistant, managed to find Tony in the middle of a desert, even found the group responsible for it. You do all that and ask why I find you impressive.”

“It is all a part of my job, Mr. Stane, no more and no less.”

They maneuvered back inside again, towards the bar with its small cluster of guests. Stane waved at the bartender, holding up a $100 bill. “Two of the best bourbons you’ve got, please. Straight for me.”

“The same,” Peggy echoed at his inquiring glance. The bartender rushed off to meet his fat tip while Stane watched him with bored benevolence.

“You know, first job I had on my own was as a bartender at a golf-course up in the Bay area. The pay was laughable, and I knew nothing about alcohol, but the guy who manned the bar, Gus, used to work on Union Pacific trains back in the day. You ever take one of the old trains with the fancy dining cars?”

She had, but she didn’t think those were a thing anymore. “I know the concept, yes.”

“Gus had been everywhere, knew every sort of alcohol you could get your hands on. He used to say the best bourbon was found in these little stills just outside of Bourbon County, not the big commercial ones. Anyway, he taught me all I ever knew on the subject. One thing he said, the best stuff is made by those who have patience, who nurture and care for each batch, each barrel, who oversee every step of the production. When you put that sort of love and care into a product - into a name, really - it shines on the back end. When it’s a mass produced sort of thing, you don’t know who is doing what, where you are getting the grain or who is monitoring the fermentation. All your doing is collecting a paycheck while someone else does all the hard work.”

Stane was precisely subtle in his metaphors, Peggy noted dryly, as the bartender returned with their requested potables. Peggy wrapped her fingers around the glass, holding it up in brief salute. “A salute to Gus, then, the man who set you on your path?”

Stane held gamely met her glass with his in a quiet toast. “To Gus.”

They sipped their liquor slowly. Peggy savored the brief hit of liquid, burning across her tongue and down her throat, hints of vanilla and carmel firing as she regarded the amber liquid. “That is a nice one.”

“It’s not bad,” Stane conceded, setting his glass down in front of him, the light from the bartop shining golden through the tumbler’s bottom. “I’ll say, nearly fifty years on and I’ve developed a taste for the finer things in life, including my alcohol.”

“I suppose as we all age and mature, we learn more about the world, our perceptions change.” Peggy swirled her glass, more as a thing to do with her hands. “Is there something you wished to speak with me about?”

“No,” he shrugged, leaning on the bar to look out on the bar room. “I suppose more than anything I wanted to chat with a beautiful woman...wonder what SHIELD’s interest in Tony is.”

“Ahh, we’ve established there are things that I can’t tell you.”

“Yes, we did.” He chuckled, seemingly charmed by her strict adherence to protocol. “I have to say, Miss Carter, I was very intrigued by you. Tried to do a bit of looking up about you, but you are fairly mysterious. A place in New York, dual citizenship, a business card and not a lot else.”

Peggy had wondered if he would try, and she had wondered if SHIELD had put anything out there about her. Clearly, they had tried to keep that as minimal as possible. “In my line of work, Mr. Stane, it doesn’t benefit anyone to have my life out there for anyone to easily find.”

“Of course not, but you can’t blame a man for trying.”

She could, she thought darkly, sensing the game he was playing. While she could easily shut it down, she doubted a man with the ego the size of Stane’s would appreciate it. Unlike Howard, who had respected her for puncturing his ego in his own, strange way, Stane would simply shut down if she tried it on him. This was at least an opening, even if it wasn’t ideal.

“Mr. Stane, precisely what is your interest in me that you would want to find out more?”

“A smart, intelligent, beautiful woman and you ask me that?”

Peggy only just did stop herself from rolling her eyes. “I’m afraid that flattery gets most people nowhere.”

“So it seems.” He didn’t appear to be bothered by that. “You're a mystery to me, Miss Carter, and a woman with your talents could go far working for Stark Industries, especially given the new direction it is going.”

“Do you mean in terms of shifting focus in the production of weapons or the demands from the board for a change in leadership?” Her smile over her glass was pointed. She might as well put her cards on the table and let Stane look at them. For his part, it only seemed to impress him further.

“I knew I was right about you, Miss Carter. There will be changes, yes, ones that could perhaps benefit those who are wise enough to jump in now, help guide and direct a new era of Stark Industries.”

How many times had he given this speech? How many other dupes had he dangled this carrot in the hopes of sucking them into his other schemes, wrapping them up into it and having them manage the dirty work of war and profit? “And you think I would leave the nice job I have right now for that?”

“Must be annoying that a man like Fury sits at the top spot when you are so capable yourself.”

Peggy would have laughed out loud at that if she wasn’t trying to play along. He really had no idea who she was, or who she had been. If he did, he wouldn’t have tried this angle. “Director Fury does his job quite well.”

“So I’ve heard, but your what, half his age? Less than that? And already you sit where you do? You can’t tell me you aren’t gunning for that.”

Peggy mildly mused that she was technically old enough to be Fury’s mother...Stane’s too, for that matter. “Fury has to deal with far more than I do.”

“Well, yes, I’m sure, but you could be doing more. I’m saying there is an opportunity for you if you want it.”

The levels of meaning in this conversation were so deep she could have cut through them with a knife. On the one hand, there was that part of her that was pleased to see someone actually appreciate her abilities openly, even if she knew Stane was pandering to her. At the same time, she couldn't help but notice that some things hadn't changed, either. Peggy would be a fool not to see that he was interested in her for more than her mind and skills, and while the very idea left her skin crawling, she merely shrugged a shoulder as she sipped from her drink, gracing him with an ambiguous smile. “I at least entertain all offers.”

“I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t.” His confidence made Peggy’s wish very much to punch him in his smug face. She instead demurred, setting aside her drink, uninterested in the very fine alcohol any more.

“You are a man who interests me as well,” she responded, at least with some honesty, though not in the way he expected. “Perhaps we can speak further while I’m in Los Angeles.”

That pleased him greatly. “I am out of town for the next couple of days, traveling abroad. Set something up with Nicole, if she’s forgiven you for that incident in New York that is. Perhaps we can have dinner and discuss further.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” she affirmed, wondering how well that conversation would go over. Stane’s assistant had little and less love of Peggy. “Where will your travels be taking you to?”

“Oh, Europe mostly, the usual. I have clients I have to talk down and pacify with everything going on.” His put upon sigh was really a nice bit of acting on is part. “Tony’s new direction has caused a lot more problems than it’s solved.”

“I’m sure if there is anyone who can get it under control, it will be you.” Peggy was amazed the words could even tumble out of her mouth without her choking on them. “I will try to catch you after that.”

“I look forward to it.” His warm smile didn’t quite meet the glitter in his cold, blue eyes. Over his shoulder, she could see Coulson crossing the dance floor, making eye contact with her before moving towards the doors outside.

“I do hope you excuse me, Mr. Stane,” Peggy practically purred. “I do believe it is time for Cinderella to take her carriage back to her hotel. We will talk more soon.”

She held out her hand for him to shake, but to her surprise he swept it up, bringing it to his lips in a courtly gesture that another woman might find charming and old fashioned, but to Peggy it left her feeling cold. Still, she kept her fingers loose in his as he brushed his mouth against them tamely. “A pleasure, Miss Carter.”

She turned on her heels, walking as seductively as she could manage, even as she felt the desire to rub her knuckles along the fabric of her thigh, just to rid herself of the sensation. She made it outside before she let the facade fall somewhat, meeting Coulson where he stood on the steps. Something in her expression must have given something away, because he watched her with sympathetic concern as she maneuvered to where he stood.

“I called Solarzano, he’s bringing the car around.” He glanced beyond her to the doors she just walked out of. “Stane suspect anything?”

“I’m not sure,” she murmured, glancing around for ears. None were about, but she shot Coulson a warning look all the same. He understood, thankfully, and simply stood quietly as they waited for the ubiquitous black car to pull up. 

They didn’t have to wait long, as Solarzano slid up, exchanging pleasantries in Spanish with the valet worker as they managed to climb inside. Once they were buckled in, the car pulled off and into traffic, Solarzano eyeing them both. “Anyone famous there?”

“I think I saw Penèlope Cruz,” Coulson offered with a wry smirk, one which Peggy didn’t understand.

“Nice,’ Solarzano sighed, the sort that told her that she must be someone famous and attractive. “They never give me those kind of investigatory details.”

“Maybe one day,” Coulson teased. “Anything happen while we were in?”

“Yeah,” Solarzano dug in the console as he drove. Peggy took the opportunity to divest herself of the device in her ear and just inside her dress, working her jaw at her now empty and somewhat sore ear.

“Got a few strange calls into Santa Monica PD tonight, something about a ‘UFO’. They called in Air Traffic Control down by LAX but they got nothing. Whatever it is they were seeing, it was likely too small for the radars to pick it up.” He passed back a folder that Coulson took as Peggy handed Solarzano her device.

“Is it Stark,” she asked as Coulson reviewed it.

“Maybe," he frowned as he flipped through it. “Little more than freaked out people strolling the Venice boardwalk and a few nosy ladies. Could just as well be teenagers playing around with something.”

“We’ll need to see if there was anyone else with more eyes up in the sky.”

“I’ll make some calls when we get back to the hotel,” Coulson assured her, arching a speculative eyebrow at her. “So, Stane was eager to get close to you.”

“In more ways than one,” she muttered, darkly, rubbing her ear gently. “I think he’s trying to conscript me.”

“Into SI, into his plans, or into his bed?”

“Likely all three,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “I will give him points for trying at his age. He’s got the distinguished factor going for him. I suspect while he comes off as dignified, he likely isn’t that far behind Stark in his personal life, just far more discrete about it.”

Coulson only made the slightest disturbed frown. “Why is he interested in you?”

Peggy frowned out of the darkly tinted front window, considering. “I think he’s curious, more than anything. And I think he suspects that I’ve figured out a part of it all, if not the whole, and if he can get to me and bring me in, he controls that piece. He’s playing on what he suspects my ambition is, that and his own gut instincts.”

Worry creased Coulson’s brow. “He doesn’t know who you really are, does he?”

“I don’t think so, or at least he didn’t seem to. He looked, he admitted as much, but Hill has been very careful what she puts out there. I played it off simply as standard protocol for an intelligence officer.”

“But why would he single you out?”

That admittedly did niggle at her. “I think only because he recognized me and saw me going after Stark. I think he fears we may know something, or might be able to sway Stark another way. Whatever the case, he kept me occupied and away from talking to Stark, so I suppose it worked.”

Coulson didn’t look pleased. “He’s not stupid. If he’s run this operation for decades, he can figure out an obvious ploy.”

“Which is why we go around him. What about Potts?”

Coulson’s mood didn’t improve any more at that question. “I managed to catch her on the terrace, pin her in as you said. I think she was expecting Stark to come right back. When he didn’t, I pressed the advantage. She got me on her calendar for a week from Wednesday.”

“Not sooner?” They’d be stuck in Los Angeles waiting otherwise.

“I was luck to get even that. She’s got me down for a 4 o’clock. Honestly, if she wasn’t preoccupied with Stark wandering off I don’t think I would have gotten that. Where did he go?”

“Not sure,” Peggy replied, recalling his abrupt departure. “He was speaking with a woman, a blonde. She passed him photographs and he grew agitated and went out to confront Stane. He left right after that, clearly upset, but I got cut off before I could get to him.”

“Think we could find out who the blonde was?”

“If we get a guestlist with photographs, perhaps. Whatever she had to tell him, he wasn’t happy.”

“I wonder if Stark’s starting to get the idea of what Stane is up to.”

“If he is,” Peggy sighed as they pulled in front of their fabulous hotel. “We will need to stop Stane before he puts it all together. And if he’s anything like his father, that will be much sooner rather than later.”

That was the grim thought she took with her to her fabulous room, with its fabulous bath, and its fabulous bed. Peggy flopped down on the pillow soft mattress, unbuckling her shoes to toe them off before snuggling against the cloud of pillows, considering her evening and her discussion with Stane, of the way he tried to insinuate himself to her. She did rub her knuckles against the soft bedspread, dispelling the brush of his kiss on them, willing herself not to teeth at his audacity in asking her to dance. She had a role to play, she recognized that, but there was something of it all that left her wanting to scrape her skin clean before going to bed, that reminder of how he was not the sort of man she would have danced with, ever.

That inevitably led to thoughts of Steve, of promises made and dances not had. It had been a long time since she had...Jason, was it? Daniel never really could. It was hard to find a partner to sweep her off her feet. For all of her calm under fire tonight, her smiles, her cool flirtation with Stane, she found she missed desperately Steve and his shy smiles, his shuffling steps, the uncertainty that came from a combination of nerves and the mysterious newness of having a woman interested in him at all. All the things that her encounter tonight was not.

"Soon," she sighed, holding a pillow close, sighing in her exhaustion. "Hopefully, soon."


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which they discover what that UFO was.

The truth behind the Santa Monica UFO became more clear by Monday morning when they made their way to the Los Angeles HQ. 

“Air Force is claiming that it was a training accident.” Romanoff sat on the edge of her borrowed desk, legs crossed, eyeing James Rhodes at his press conference from Edwards Air Force Base. Why he was giving the presser had yet to be explained, as Peggy was well aware the Air Force, like other branches of the military, had their own press team, but it wasn’t hard to think of the reason why. He was clearly covering for Stark.

“If it is a training accident, then I’m the Queen of England,” Peggy muttered, glancing at Coulson. “What does Barton have to say on it?”

Romanoff quickly swept in, cutting off her superior, ignoring the fact Peggy had addressed him and not her. “I had Barton reach out to his contacts in Afghanistan as soon as I heard chatter from Rhodes and the SI legal team. Only thing he could get off anyone over there is that the Ten Rings group that had been besieging Gulmira was taken out by a lone robot who killed the main henchmen and all his little buddies. It was shortly after that when this so-called ‘training accident’ happened.”

“Enemy fire,” Coulson asked, perturbed with Romanoff’s interruption, but clearly more eager than Peggy to let it slide.

“If it were that, they’d come clean with it. All the more reason to pain the Ten Rings as terrorists and give credence for more US action in the area. That’s not what Rhodes is doing, though.”

“Then maybe it was Stark’s fire,” Peggy muttered, ignoring her disgruntlement with Romanoff as she considered the situation at hand. “They said a robot showed up and wiped out the forces there, that’s likely his suit. Maybe he’s still working out the bugs in it and something went wrong.”

“How did he get over there, though,” Coulson challenged. “We saw him Friday night and none of his private airplanes cleared for take off. We checked.”

“If he could create a suit to fly out of that cave, don’t you think he could build a suit that flew faster and better than that to fly to Afghanistan?” It was perhaps far-fetched, but not unreasonable to Peggy, especially not for a Stark.

“To fly from Malibu to Gulmira?” Coulson wasn’t as easily convinced.

“Stark knows aerodynamics,” Romanoff cut in, pointedly nodding to Rhodes. “They’ve been building planes for years, not just weapons. It wouldn’t be hard for Stark to figure it out.”

Coulson looked at them both as if they and their hypothesis were insane. Peggy wasn’t about to deny that, she had no illusions just how mad the idea of a suit that could fly halfway across the globe in a few hours could be. All she knew was that clearly Tony Stark had done it, and apparently he missed the memo on what was and wasn’t possible for his genius mind and capabilities to create.

“Fine, so let us say this is indeed Stark’s suit, how is he running it? How is he managing enough firepower for him to wipe out a group of men who have been besieging and terrorizing a small town for weeks?”

“That I don’t know,” Peggy admitted, glancing to Romanoff, who lifted a shoulder ruefully.

“I have yet to find anything. If Stark has discovered something, he’s yet to put a patent on it. He may be waiting to finish testing it out before he does, and then the legal team will be working overtime to do it.”

If Romanoff hadn’t just been rude to her, Peggy might have felt sorry for her. Instead, Peggy chose to focus on how Stark was making all of this work. “Does he have a power source we don’t know about that he’s using? Whatever happened to the Tesseract?”

She didn’t miss the way Coulson flinched as she said that. “It’s safe and contained for now.”

“And Stark doesn’t know about it?”

“That’s a classified artifact, and as we’ve established Stark wasn’t brought into SHIELD.”

Coulson was tap dancing and doing it well, but not so well that Peggy couldn’t see it. Out of the corner of her eye even Romanoff was watching him with quiet curiosity, though her speculative look was hardly different than her bland indifference. Still, it was clear she didn’t know about that artifact either, but Coulson did. Peggy took note and continued.

“That may well be, but Howard pulled it off the ocean floor. He studied it for years trying to make heads or tails of it and understand how Schmidt used it to power his arsenal. I’m not an engineer or a scientist, but you can’t tell me that Arc Reactor of his isn’t one of his attempts to recreate the very sort of energy so he could more efficiently run his plant, do something good with it.”

It was a very Howard sort of way of thinking and Peggy knew she was on the money when the tips of Coulson’s ears flushed. “That he did, but what does that have to do with Stark’s suit?”

“You asked how he was powering it,” Peggy replied, simply.

Coulson was a brilliant man, but even he hadn’t considered that possibility, judging from the hint of dubiousness now as he thought about it. Romanoff, who clearly could believe a lot of possibilities, at least looked as if she believed it plausible. It was she who spoke first in measured consideration as just a hint of her natural accent broke the surface, perhaps even unbeknownst to her.

“It’s possible, in theory,” she mused, dark green eyes narrowing as she braced the heels of her hands on either side along the edge of the desk, hunching her shoulders around her ears. “I mean, if we can shrink batteries enough to fit inside of cameras so small we can put them inside the human body to see, why can’t Stark create a smaller version of his father's reactor?”

“Would it even work?” Coulson wasn’t as sure, arms crossed as he paced the narrow confines of Romanoff’s borrowed office.

“I mean, if he cracked it, sure, but no one has cracked it before. What little I know of the development of it is that Howard Stark never got much further than the building of the large one in El Segundo. He had the patent on it and control of all other future developments with the technology, which may be why we’ve not heard anything about it. Stark doesn’t need to file anything with the US government for any special technology because he owns it.”

“Which leaves him to develop his new suit in secret.” Peggy nodded towards the screen. “Rhodes is his best friend. He would willingly cover for him if Stark asked.”

Coulson sighed heavily, stopping his steps to stare at the television. “So the timeline of events is this; Stark tests his technology sometime Friday night, takes a spin around Santa Monica Bay. He then goes to the gala, schmoozes for a few minutes before he heads back home, then at some point puts on the suit, flies to Afghanistan in time to get there late Saturday afternoon local time and proceeds to clear out the Ten Rings forces in Gulmira. That’s when he engages with the US fighter pilots. I’m guessing that was a mistake.”

“Most likely, given that he’s donating a new plane to cover up for this training exercise,” Romanoff observed.

“Whatever happened, Stark makes it back home to Malibu sometime on Saturday in California. He’s certainly home by Sunday when he made an appearance at a Jamba Juice not far from his home.”

“And no one is the wiser for it.” Peggy supplied. In a world with satellites that could see everything, how could they miss this. “Do we have visuals on Gulmira?”

“Not that the US government would let us see, but I think if we get Burk on the case his team might be able to find something.” Coulson looked to where Romanoff perched. “Has Stark made a move out of his mansion or to the office at all?”

“Not that I know of, but I do have one interesting tidbit. Stane left in a Stark Industries private jet this morning.”

“He said he was going to be in Europe this week on a business trip,” Peggy interjected, remembering too well their charged conversation from the other night.

Romanoff looked a bit like the cat who stole the cream. “Except his flight manifest has him making an unexpected and unscheduled stop to meet with NATO forces in Kabul. I stumbled on that one only because of the top level clearance. It’s all hush hush, cleared through the State Department, but the meeting with the brass seems on the level.”

Peggy’s mind pounced on this new information, fitting it into what they already knew. “He’s there to meet with them. Did he schedule it or did they?”

“Not clear, but I’m guessing if his assistant was working on getting him clearance he’s the one who put the request through.”

“Which means he’s likely going to reach out to his contacts there.” Peggy played through the discussion she and Stane had at the bar, of how he found her on the steps, his conversation with Stark just before, the confrontation at the bar. “There was a woman who came up to Stark at the bar the other night, blonde, pretty, had some sort of point she was trying to make to him.”

Romanoff’s snort was delicate but pointed. “Frankly, that could be any attractive blonde around Stark.”

Peggy wasn’t about to deny that. “No, but she put photographs in front of his face. I didn’t catch what it was, but it was enough that he was upset. He spoke with Stane and then left. That was before Stane spotted me. Any way of knowing who the woman was?”

“I can pull up a guest list easily enough,” Romanoff reached for a tablet, already working her fingers across the glass.

Even Coulson appeared impressed with that. “Those French lessons paying off, then?”

Romanoff’s smile was fond and genuine for a change. “He’s a smart kid with indulgent parents. He won’t ever be Molier, but I think he can pass his AP language exam. His mother does need to learn how to encrypt her data on her home laptop, though, because you never know what sort of co-worker can get in and swipe potentially useful data.”

For all the complications around Romanoff, Peggy had to admit she was scarily good. “Anyone who could potentially fit our mysterious woman?”

“I think I got a hit pretty quickly.” Romanoff tapped the screen before flipping it around for Peggy to see. Up came footage of a reporter, the blonde with generic good looks and somewhat severe expression, her hair sleek and styled as she spoke into a camera.

“That’s her,” Peggy confirmed.

“Who is she,” Coulson asked as Romanoff flipped her tablet around again, pulling up data.

“Christine Everhart, she’s a reporter with _Vanity Fair_. The magazine’s owner donates big to the Stark Foundation and I’m guessing he used his pull to get her into the event, probably in the hopes of catching Stark again. Funny, she’s the reporter I had told you about, the one who was paying people to get in deep in Gulmira. She probably found out that Stark Industries was selling weapons to terrorists there and confronted Stark about it.”

“And he confronted Stane,” Peggy supplied with a certain sense of dread. “Which means he’s figured it out.”

“And that doesn’t leave us much time,” Coulson warned, looking grim. “If Stark knows, Stane will move to have him out one way or the other. My guess is that a corporate takeover won’t be clean enough for him.”

Despite the fact she knew he had tried it once, the idea that Stane would work to actually attempt to assassinate Howard’s son all to gain control of Howard’s legacy left her feeling horrified and cold. In her first conversation with him, Stane had worked so hard to play up how close he had been to Howard, their friendship and mutuality, the way he cared for Tony, the boy who was neglected and unappreciated by Howard. How much of that had been a lie? Had Howard really been that neglectful of his only son or had Stane engineered all of that too? Had this been his slow play from the beginning, accepting Howard’s offer to join Stark Industries in order to slowly consume it from the inside, to take over Howard’s life and work?

“We need to get to Stark,” she murmured, a frantic edge in her voice. “We have to get him to listen.”

“With what?” Romanoff countered, pointedly. “With encrypted emails and suppositions. We don’t have enough of a hard and fast case yet.”

“We can just tell him something!”

“What if he knows?” Coulson was the one who cut in with reason, halting Peggy’s quickly spiraling thoughts. She blinked up at him and continued. “Stark’s a genius, if he’s figured out that Stane is the one dealing under the table and behind his back, he’s probably figured out that Stane is also mixed up with his disappearance or at least suspects that he is. Probably also knows Stane’s the one pushing him out of the company.”

“So do you propose we not approach him?” Peggy couldn’t help the flash of annoyance at that idea. She wasn’t going to stand around when she could help Howard’s son. “You said it yourself, he has likely figured it out. That may be what his stunt in Gulmira was, a shot across the bow at Stane. Are we going to let Stane use that to threaten him or tear him down?”

“Stark doesn’t trust us,” Coulson replied simply, cool in the face of even Peggy’s agitation. “That’s clear in the fact we’ve given him opportunities to talk to us and he hasn’t taken them.”

“Admittedly, it’s his MO,” Romanoff chimed in. “Stark doesn’t trust anyone who hasn’t earned a place in his inner circle. He doesn’t know SHIELD. You are better off talking with Potts. If you win her over, she’ll advocate to Stark. He trusts her.”

They were right. Peggy didn’t like it, but they were correct. “And she will help us?”

Coulson was the one to chuckle at that question. “You didn’t see her Friday night. If she’s not in love with Stark already, she’s most of the way there. Even if she weren’t, she’s always been protective of him. If we tip her off, she will do what she can to convince him.”

“But will she believe Stane is behind it?”

That Coulson seemed less sure of. “She’s the one who gave us access. If we lay it before her that we’ve been monitoring his communication for some time and give her evidence, she likely would.”

“Stark might have already tipped her off as well,” Romanoff interjected. “He confides in her the most, so she may be aware of at least some of it. She can tell us what he does know.”

It was far from ideal, but it was what they had on tap. “All right, we’ll sit tight till you have a chance to meet with her.” She nodded towards Coulson, unflappable as ever. She then glanced at Romanoff. “You’ll keep an eye on Stane’s movements, then?”

She nodded, curtly, slipping off her desk. “I got to get back. I’ll keep an eye out in case flying robots make an appearance in the area. Stark might try and test his new wings.”

Peggy had a feeling there would be a lot more sightings of him up and down the California coast. “Perhaps we should quietly pass the word on to those who might be frightened at the prospect of another unidentified flying object?”

“I’ll have our team pass on that SHIELD is developing some experimental technology that may be seen in the area and leave it at that. As long as Stark doesn’t get to showboat-y, we should be fine.”

Romanoff didn’t look as certain. “That will only cover us for a time before people start making a thing out of this. One crazed alien conspiracy theorist and they will be all over this.”

“Then I suppose we will have to work to get Stark under the banner of the Avengers. To do that, we need Stane first. I’ll see what I can do to set up time with him when he gets back in town.” She shifted, uncomfortable at the notion. “He seems to have a certain passing interest in me, I might as well use it to my advantage.”

For a brief moment, she thought she saw something akin to sympathy cross Romanoff’s face, but it was subsumed by a sardonic raise of an eyebrow. “It’s what a spy is supposed to do, right? Ingratiate ourselves to our enemies, earn their trust, and steal away their secrets to destroy them with?”

Peggy wondered for a moment if Romanoff was making an observation on her own life, Peggy’s, or the art of spying in general. “I suppose, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Something passed for a moment between the two of them and was gone as Romanoff gathered herself up, looping a handbag and briefcase over her shoulder. “I need to get back, but let me know if Burk can pull up visuals of Gulmira. I’ll be in touch.”

Peggy watched the other woman walk out the door, feeling as if she had somehow missed a part of the conversation and not sure what it was.


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy is forced to wait and gets to know Coulson.

Waiting did not come naturally to Peggy.

On the vague edges of her memory she recalled a moment from her very young childhood, so far back she couldn’t even be certain it was as much a real memory as much as a pastiche from stories her mother and brother had regaled her with. It had involved a formal tea, or so she recalled it, with people gathered in smart clothes and she in a frock she detested. Her mother had made her promise that if she behaved herself like a lady and managed to neither embarrass herself in front of the guests or stain and tear her dress, she would be allowed the cake she had been begging for. The rest of the details remained unclear, but she did recall an interminable hour of sitting on a chair as hard as steel, desperately trying not to swing her legs or pull at the ribbons that lined the hem of her dress, too focused on being miserable, bored, and itchy in starched cotton, forced to sit so still. The minute her mother gave her leave, however, she had grabbed a slice of cake off the table and with a war whoop tore out into the garden, all propriety forgotten, eager to be free with her prize. According to Michael she’d managed to climb a tree in 15 seconds, flashing the church ladies gardening circle with her knickers as she went. Peggy wasn't certain he had been a reliable source, but she did recall the utter joy of getting what she wanted and the rush of the immediacy of it.

She could be patient, when she had to be, but at the moment, holed up as she had been for several days in their gilded hotel, she was less than happy about it. Stark was proving maddingly elusive, Stane had yet to return, and despite Coulson’s best efforts, Potts had yet to budge on their meeting time. Indeed, she seemed to be wrapped up completely in Malibu, which seemed to indicate she was in on whatever Stark’s schemes were.

She felt like she was six once more, watching the hands tick by on her mother’s antique, china clock sitting on the mantle.

Perhaps there was a certain amount of irony that she was currently sitting having high tea under hand carved ceilings, an echo of a refined, Spanish style, with hints of Morocco and the Meditterenean. The tea itself was delight, perhaps the first truly good cup she had in this modern era, and the cakes and sandwiches were delicious enough, certainly better than she’d had since she left England for good. While it wasn’t as spot her mother’s sort of delicately planned spread, it was reminiscent enough to remind her of those long afternoons, knees bouncing nervously as she tried to patiently sit through the adults meeting and chatting with each other about boring things.

“You know I should have thought to look for you here, but somehow this wasn’t the place I went to first.”

Peggy had to give it to Coulson, it was perhaps a bit too stereotypical, but she had come more out of a need for comfort and something familiar than anything else. “Come, sit, have a cuppa.”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever had a scone.” Coulson slid into a chair, eyeing the small tower with its goodies with dubious curiosity. “Or sandwiches cut into triangles for that matter.”

“The chicken salad is a treat,” she recommended, flagging down a server for another cup and saucer.

Coulson neatly plucked a sandwich off one of the serving plates, studying it like he would a piece of evidence. “Why do they have to cut it so small?”

“I asked my mother the same question. She said it was because ladies like delicate things and told me not stuff my mouth with three of them.”

That made the other man laugh as he popped the whole thing into his mouth just as the server returned with the requested cup. Peggy took it carefully, glancing at him. “How do you take it?”

“Take what,” he asked, seemingly satisfied with the first sandwich enough to try another.

“You’re tea,” she smirked, pouring amber liquid inside. “Everyone has a preference, usually.”

“I like it...hot, I guess? Sometimes iced when it’s warm out. Is this salmon and cucumber?”

“Yes,” she replied, passing the untouched cup of darjeeling over, wondering vaguely if he was going to question every item on the tray. “You aren’t a tea drinker?”

“Not as such, no. You would think I would be, growing up in Wisconsin, which gets bitter cold, but it was hot chocolate, coffee or nothing.” He sipped from the cup, found it palatable at least, then set it down again. “I can’t imagine you’ve had a proper one of these in a while?”

“No,” Peggy affirmed, sipping her own, with a hint of sugar and lemon. “I don’t think since before the war, actually. Once it started in earnest most of this stuff was hard and harder to come by with rations. Still, my mother was fond of them. She had all of her groups she held them for. I found them deadly dull, but was in it for the nibbles.”

Coulson helped himself to a tiny cake with more trust than he showed the sandwiches. “My grandmother used to do that sort of thing, I think. She had sets that she left to my mother. I think I packed them away somewhere, thinking maybe I could give them to a cousin or something, but haven’t gotten around to it.”

“You don’t have a sister to pass them on to?” It occurred to Peggy that for all that Coulson knew of her, or at least officially knew about her, she knew precious little about him. She’d worked alongside this man for months and hadn’t bothered to learn much beyond his name and his function in SHIELD.

Coulson didn’t seem bothered by this fact. Instead he seemed pleased she cared. “Nope, I’m an only child.” Something a hint forlorn at that idea underlined his shrug. “That was what it was. Had my parents, though. Dad died just after I graduated high school, Mom passed after I started SHIELD.”

He said it so matter-of-factly, but it hit Peggy how alone he was. “I’m so sorry!”

Coulson seemed to take many things with an equanimity that Peggy never could muster. “It’s all right. I mean, Dad was a hard blow. He coached my baseball and football teams, taught me how to fix cars. After Mom got sick...well, I was just happy they are together.”

It was the sort of thing Steve said about his own parents on the rare occasions he would talk about them. “And you don’t have any other family?”

“Well, the cousins; a couple in Milwaukee, one in Des Moines, and another in Minnesota, I think, all my Mom’s family. We drifted apart after she died and I took up SHIELD. Working in espionage is hell on a family life.”

“Tell me about it,” Peggy agreed, thinking of Sharon, Harry and the strain on their relationship. “Still, it has to be hard.”

“Sometimes,” he admitted with just a soft smile. “But, you make friends and connections in the work, and then you occasionally meet people.”

The hint of a flush on his pale cheeks spoke to hidden shyness she had not known in Coulson. Like a schoolgirl yearning for gossip, Peggy grinned at him. “Is there someone then you’ve met?”

She hadn’t been aware Coulson could get this discombobulated, even around herself. He avoided answering for a moment by polishing off the tea in his cup, which Peggy promptly filled. “Someone...she lives out here..out on the West Coast that is. Currently, she's in the Bay area.”

“I see,” Peggy replied amiably, but couldn’t help the hint of delight at that. “Is she a member of SHIELD?”

“No,” he was quick to answer, shaking his head. “No, she is a civilian, which is a highlight. It’s a bit easy to be isolated working in an organization like ours.”

That was the truth, Peggy silently admitted, and had been since even its SSR days. “It’s always easier to be close to those you went to war with.”

“I suppose, when you put it that way, I can see it. Still, she’s just a normal person. Plays cello with a local philharmonic.”

“I didn’t take you for a lover of classical music.”

“I wouldn’t say I was, but my knowledge doesn’t go much beyond the basics, admittedly.” It was a rare moment seeing Coulson so quietly bashful. “Anyway, when I get a chance I go and see her.”

“Good for you,” Peggy enthused, surprised by how pleased she was by the idea. “The many layers of Coulson I am getting to see. You’re opening up like a flower.”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” he chuckled, eyeing her curiously. “So now that you’ve been here what, nine months already, what is it about this time period that you’ve liked the most and what have you felt was most difficult?”

It wasn’t a question that surprised her, but it was one that made her think as she leaned back in her cushioned seat and considered her life since she walked away from Howard’s party months ago and followed Scott Lang down the rabbit hole. “Well, I won’t lie, the world has been mad since I stepped into it, but I wouldn’t be where I was if I wasn’t adaptable. Some things are familiar, I suppose. Honestly, it isn’t as if the lot of you invented sex, drugs and violence in the 21st century.”

“Good to know,” Coulson smirked over the rim of his cup.

Peggy continued. “The technology has been a massive change, but not insurmountable. I suppose that must be Howard’s influence on me, I’m rather used to odd and strange bits of electronic gizmos being thrown at me and told to accept them. I do admit, however, the phone situation you all find yourselves in is both alarming and highly addictive.”

“I remember when phones were still attached to wires in the wall, so I think I side more with you on that argument.”

“Yes, well, I do see why people love their smartphones.” Peggy had pointedly left hers in her room, which was part of why Coulson hadn’t been able to find her. “I think the one thing I find alarming is just how fast everything is. Things move at the speed of light; news, information, people, things. Do any of you ever stop?”

“When we sleep?” He chuckled, leaning back in his own chair, lazy and relaxed. “Honestly, I wouldn’t know any different?”

“You don’t do anything to just slow down? Take a breath?”

“Sure! Read a book, tinker on my car, watch a ballgame.”

That was something she was familiar with, having spent so much time around American men and their fascination with sport. “Who is your team?”

“Depends on the sport!” Of course he would like more than one, that seemed to be the way of many men she knew, even in the 40s. “My dad coached football, so I played that for a while. He loved Green Bay and the Badgers. My first love was baseball, though. Played all through childhood, from Little League up through college. I was a kid when they put a baseball team in Milwaukee, so you could get tickets for cheap, and every summer for years my dad and I would go to games.”

He spoke with the same idyllic longing that she had heard from many a GI, most especially Steve and Bucky. Even Howard had waxed poetic on the game. Something about it seemed to hearken to a simpler time, one far away from the pace and danger of the lives they led, something that made them feel like boys. It was the only thing Peggy could guess as she would listen for hours to the Howling Commandos carry on about their teams, throwing back statistics and jabs, a game of friendly rivalry as they tried to one up each other in their love and affection for their favorite players and positions.

“I know little about the game,” she admitted. “Back when I worked in the SSR everyone there seemed to love the Yankees, I believe. Certainly, if one of them was mentioned a whole debate would start in the middle of the bullpen that would last for hours. I might have seen Joe DiMaggio once?”

She might as well have said she saw Jesus once for the look on Coulson’s face. “DiMaggio? Like...the real one?”

“Was there a fake one?” Her teasing only served to make him stare at her more.

“Like...how?”

“A nightclub I was at, investigating one of Howard’s stolen items, a formula for an explosive that made the atom bomb look like child’s play.” Why he had ever thought of these things, Peggy would never understand. “In any case, it seemed to be all anyone could ever talk about.”

“DiMaggio,” Coulson breathed, running a palm over his head in amazement. “I mean...I suppose I forget you really are from that time, that period.”

Peggy could only chuckle at his seeming awe. “I know you got into SHIELD because Fury pursued you. I know you looked up to Steve. I know you even liked that ridiculous radio show I detest. What don’t I know about Phil Coulson?”

That caught him even more by surprise than the fact she may or may not have once met Joe DiMaggio in person. “I mean...my car can fly.”

Well that was...unexpected. 

“Like one of Howard’s silly cars?”

“Exactly like that, mostly because it is one of his cars?”

Now Peggy did stare at him. “He never got one of those things to work!”

“No, he got exactly one of those things to work...well, work well enough that only he drove it. I have it now, a '62 Corvette, tricked out and everything. No one knows, of course, it’s anything more than just a regular car, but…”

“How did you get it?”

“My father did, actually.” There was a memory there, something bittersweet. “Dad loved cars, loved tinkering with them. That’s what he’d do on his off time. He was the one who taught me. Anyway, he taught high school history when he wasn’t coaching, and he somehow know a guy who did archiving for SHIELD. They were cleaning out a warehouse somewhere, upstate New York I think, and there she was in mothballs. Had been for a decade or better, but still beautiful. SHIELD couldn’t use it, Howard Stark had settled down into married life by then and didn’t want it, so they were going to auction it off at a sale with some other generic things. I guess Stark had forgotten, or neglected to tell anyone, that it was one of his flying cars. Dad didn’t figure it out till he got it home to Wisconsin.”

He paused to laugh at the idea of it. “Oh, man, was Mom upset. She hadn’t wanted him buying the car in the first place. He didn’t dare tell her about it being a flying tank.”

Peggy could only blink, stunned herself that such a thing had been carelessly set loose on the world...again. “Honestly, Howard couldn’t keep track of half of his made creations out there. Someone could have been killed!”

“Coulson didn’t deny this. “I mean, yeah, but none of the artillery was working then. I think he’d had sense enough to dismantle that before mothballing it.”

“Well, thank heaven for that,” Peggy snarked, wondering if she would continue to find the detritus of Howard’s maniacal genius floating around the world until she died.

Coulson was unphased. “Anyway, we spent years, Dad and I, putting that thing together. Even figured out how to make the repulsors fly again, which you can never tell Tony Stark we ever did.”

Peggy wasn’t sure she knew what a repulsor was, but she highly doubted Stark would be jealous. If anything, he’d be far more curious how they did it. “And no one caught on to the fact you had a flying car.”

“Nope, save my mother.” He was pleased with that. “I had the car out here for years when I was located in this office, but she’s back in DC now. I’ll show her to you sometime, if you like.”

It was a moment of simple connection with the man, him offering something that had value to him in friendship, and as flippant as Peggy would like to be about both it and her fear of any of Howard’s more outlandish creations, she found she couldn’t. “If you and your father fixed it, I’m sure I won’t die in it then.”

“I’ve yet to kill anyone in Lola. Maybe I contemplated rear ending someone who nearly dinged her paint job, but thought better of it.”

“Phil Coulson with an uncharitable thought?”

“I have plenty of those, Director. I lived in the Valley, briefly, when I did work out here. That was enough to try anyone’s patience.”

Perhaps that explained why they were in such a fancy hotel at the moment after all. “And look, you with a flying car who could get around car jams.”

“Only once or twice and when no one was looking.”

They fell into companionable silence as a server came to collect their tea things. Peggy watched it go with a hint of forlorn sadness, something that stuck her profoundly. “I miss my mother.”

Coulson, who had been finishing off a cake and checking his phone discreetly paused, having not been paying heed. “I’m sorry?”

“My mother,” Peggy qualified as she folded her linen napkin neatly. “I miss her. I don’t think it hit me till just now how much I did.”

She had spent so much energy resenting the differences between them, the misunderstandings that she and her mother had always had, that it hadn’t occurred to Peggy just how much she also missed the woman who she had always bucked heads with. Not that Peggy would have ever accused Amanda Carter of not loving her own daughter. She knew without a shadow of a doubt she did love her, but their mutual personalities had been so very different. And yet, she had been the woman who taught Peggy the value of patience, of bidding her time and waiting for the reward to come to her, of keeping up appearances in public even if it was the last thing you wanted to do. Her mother had given her tools that proved a greater value to her in her chosen profession than she ever knew.

“I was just thinking,” Peggy explained at Coulson’s quizzical look. “You and your father and the car...I hated my mother’s awful tea parties, and yet I learned a lot. I don’t think I gave her enough credit for that. I suppose it had to be difficult having a daughter who was so completely out to bend and break every rule put in front of her, but when you are in it you don’t appreciate the headaches you give a parent. I’m sure you and your father had your differences.”

Coulson’s tight nod confirmed that observation. “I can’t tell you how badly I hated working on that car.”

“See,” Peggy laughed, lightly. “But it taught you patience and perseverance.”

“And how to keep her in tune, even after all these years.” He regarded her, thoughtfully. “Do you regret what you did? Jumping forward in time, coming here and now, to a world that is so new and strange?”

“It’s not as strange as all that,” Peggy shot back. “I don’t know, most days I keep myself far too busy to think about it. I suppose, I assume if I keep myself busy and motivated, then I don’t think about the loss too much. I don’t miss it then. When I’m caught, waiting, staring at a clock I think about all the things I could have been doing...all the things I missed.”

“Would you go back, if you could?”

Peggy had thought of that too. In the safe in the posh flat she had in New York, overlooking Lincoln Center, was a device she knew Tony Stark would create in a few years time, one that as of now she couldn’t operate because the particles needed were in the hands of Hank Pym, who was off the grid somewhere, speaking to no one. If she could get her hands on one of the particle tubes, she could take the other and go back in time, to where she belonged, maybe even find Steve then. But, if she did, what would become of Scott’s family...of Thanos...of half the world…

“I’m here now, aren’t I?” She chose to be evasive instead.

Coulson seemed to sense that she had no certain answer on that and chose to let it lie. “We are glad to have you. Whether you realize it or not, your work here is valuable.”

“I believe it’s certainly valuable in trying to save one Tony Stark,” she replied. “Any word yet on Stane’s return?”

“Not from Natasha, no. Has his assistant contacted you back?”

“After I upstaged her so dreadfully when last I saw her? No, she hasn’t. I can only hope he remembers I’m in town and reaches out.”

“Till then, I suppose we are stuck here, twiddling our thumbs.”

Peggy very much hated waiting.

“You used to live out here, correct?”

“Until ten years ago, yeah.”

“Good,” she nodded firmly, gathering herself together. “I’ve not been in Los Angeles in sixty years. I might as well take Sharon’s advice and learn this new world.”

It took Coulson five seconds to realize what she was getting at. “You are wanting to go play tourist?”

“Isn’t that what everyone who comes to Los Angeles does?”

“Well, yeah, but I don’t think we have time for Disneyland.”

“Come along,” she called as she marched out of the gorgeous room, intent on gathering her things. “If I have to wait for Stane to come to me, at least I can keep myself occupied while doing it.”

If she had to wait in this infernal chair, she swore to herself, then she might as well get a god damn piece of cake.


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy discovers Stane is more aware than she knows.

Burk was the one to message them with the details.

“What do we know,” Coulson asked as they sat in a requisitioned conference room, Burk on the other end of the video line. The expression on the other man's round face behind his thick glasses was grim.

“It looks like a hit. Everyone in the camp was slaughtered. It was reported to NATO command in the area and they investigated. Their assessment was that it was another local war criminal who took them out.”

The images he had provided them were grim indeed. Bodies lying in the sand, lined up and shot, an execution. The visceral memory of other such sites shook Peggy even as she remembered these men were terrorists who just weeks ago were murdering innocent civilians. They hadn’t been gunned down in crossfire or even battle, they’d been taken out by someone who wanted it to seem like rival war criminals finally getting their due.

“Is there any evidence there was a group working against them?” Coulson spoke aloud Peggy’s very own doubts.

“Not really. There is some evidence a caravan of heavily armored trucks made their way there, but if they did the Ten Rings thought they were friendly because they let them in. There wasn’t any sign of much of a conflict.”

Peggy could guess who it might have been. “Where were Stane’s whereabouts?”

Burk’s smile was dark. “Funny you should ask. Been tracking his communications. He’d put one through to Raza to meet with him. The date on the message was a week before the Stark Gala. I’m guessing this was why.”

“Cleaning up his tracks,” Coulson observed, glancing at Peggy. “The Ten Rings goofed up. He’d wanted them to kill Stark, they didn’t, now he has to do it. He removed them before anyone else could find them. Given the fact they’ve been splashed all over the news of late after Gulmira, someone was bound to notice something, and he couldn’t have that.”

“And now we can’t link him with them either,” Peggy frowned, thinking. “Is he back in the US yet, Burk?”

“From what I can tell from his communications, yeah, he got back sometime yesterday.”

“Which means I will hopefully hear from him soon,” she observed, dryly glancing between Coulson and Burk on the screen beyond. “He’s smart enough to know SHIELD is on to him and I think he hopes to shut us up.”

“That’s a lot of cajones even for him,” Coulson grumbled.

“Not if you read his communications,” Burk countered. “It’s the game he plays. Any opposition he finds, be it governmental or otherwise, he woos them in with bribes and promises. Why should SHIELD be any different?”

“Well, we will see what Mr. Stane tries to woo me with,” Peggy shrugged, to Burk’s amusement and Coulson’s consternation.

They didn’t have to wait long. By mid-morning, Peggy received a call from his assistant, the cool and diffident Nicole Sprague, who asked if she would be willing to meet Mr. Stane at his offices at Stark Industries. Peggy agreed without hesitation, even if Coulson had plenty of them.

“You sure you are going to be okay driving down there?” On their first trip to the city, Peggy had balked at the idea of getting behind the wheel with the amount of traffic and chaos she saw on the roads. Now, she merely nodded her head as she familiarized herself with the SHIELD requisition vehicle, so sleek and far more modern than anything she was used to. She’d driven precisely four times since arriving in 2010 in January, and all had been white knuckle affairs.

“I’ll be fine,” she assured him, even if she didn’t feel it. “These things have computers, they practically drive for you, right?”

Her whimsical smile did nothing to alleviate Coulson’s nervous grimace. “If anything goes down at all, you let us know. Romanoff can be on scene to find you until the calvary arrives.’

“Believe it or not, I do know how to take care of myself,” Peggy shot back tartly, but without much heat. “I was doing this before you were born.”

“You only get to say that because you time traveled you know.”

“Well, at least let me get to say it once or twice.” She shot him a cheeky grin as she pressed a button which magically started the car, a feature she couldn’t help but feel delight in. “Honestly, if we had this back in the day I’d never have had to hotwire a car.”

“Be safe,” Coulson sighed as she rolled up the window in his face with a wave and slowly made her way out of the SHIELD parking structure, fascinated by the talking computer voice giving her directions out onto the street and the freeway beyond.

Peggy arrived at Stark Industries relatively unscathed and only a little worse for wear. Just as she had months ago when she’d come with Coulson to Tony's press conference, Peggy marveled at the campus laid out around her and the scope of Howard’s ambition. Had someone told her when she met him in 1940 that the cocky, hotshot engineer courting the US Army and the SSR would create this place from the fruits of his genius, she likely wouldn’t have believed it. Then again, she had to ask herself how much of this was Stane’s hand over Howard’s imagination.

Peggy announced herself at the reception desk, a fresh-faced young woman nodding as she placed a call to someplace in the building, with a lot more grace than Peggy had been shown when she went to visit Stane in New York. She waited politely on a leather chair, flipping mildly through an engineering magazine touting the latest of Stark Industry innovations when the booming voice of Stane himself called her name across the wide, bright lobby.

“Miss Carter,” he greeted, all smiles under his silvery goatee. “I’m glad I got to catch you while you were in town.”

“Mr. Stane,” she replied, setting the magazine aside and taking his hand as she stood. “It’s a pleasure.”

“Your drive all right?” He was all affability as he led her through the halls of the building. They were not particularly tall, but bright and filled with natural light.

“Well enough, all things considered.”

That elicited a knowing chuckle out of him. “Welcome to LA traffic! I say if you live in a place as gorgeous as this you got to have a bit of payback. Where you staying here?”

“Downtown,” she replied easily enough. She didn’t have to give him details beyond that. “It must be difficult, maintaining offices both here and in New York.”

His broad shoulders shrugged under his suit coat. “I’m used to it, don’t even think of it much now at days. The cost of doing business, you know, hardly the only one living the jet setting lifestyle.”

As he chatted, amiably, they meandered through offices and clusters of workers here and there. Down one side hallway, Peggy picked up a knot of four women chatting together. In the middle of it she spotted the familiar dark, red hair of Romanoff, neatly swept up on the sides and top in a clip of some kind, wearing the same sort of office wear that the rest of them did. If she noticed Peggy at all, she didn’t look her way, simply laughing and chatting with another young woman, a brunette, who sounded as if she were discussing plans for a long weekend.

Peggy continued, her steps keeping up with Stane’s longer strides. “How was your trip abroad?”

He didn’t even display a flicker at her seemingly innocuous question. “Enlightening, but most of it was business as usual. Got to press the flesh and make all the promises, keep up all the appearances.”

“It must be difficult after Stark’s pronouncement about weapons manufacturing.”

“Not going to lie, it does make my job easy. People want to know if this is the actual new direction for the company.”

“And is it?” Peggy felt she could at least play his game.

Stane’s only answer was to smile.

They did finally come to elevators which opened up onto a level of what was obviously executive suites. Through the bright windows Peggy could see acres of buildings, a well manicured plaza with swooping, aerodynamic artwork, and in the not-so-far distance the glittering gray blue of the Pacific Ocean. The carpet muffled their steps as they wandered past offices of senior level executives to the most high end offices. One suit was clearly marked “Office of the Chief Executive Officer - Anthony Stark”. Just inside the quiet atmosphere, Peggy could see several desks, all manned by a woman of older years, who waved politely at Stane’s call.

“Don’t work too hard, Bambi,” he cheerfully teased as he continued. “Tony’s secretary, used to be Howard's back in the day. Don’t let the name fool you, she’s one of the hardest working assistants I’ve seen. Puts up with no guff.”

What the woman’s name had to do with her ability to do her job, Peggy didn’t know, but she chose to remain silent as they entered Stane’s sanctum. Much like Tony’s office, it was marked with his name and was almost as palatial. Unlike his office in New York, however, which had been sparse and neutral, this was more formal. The outer office was filled with shelves containing awards, models, various commandments, and several members of his staff, notably none of which was the notorious Nicole Sprague.

“Come in,” Sane offered, walking her into his own expansive space. Much more than his New York office, this appeared to be a work space, with a desk containing paperwork and a conference table with more folders, papers, and drafts. He had her sit in one leather chair in front of his massive desk overlooking the main plaza, bathed in sunlight behind him.

“How has your business in Los Angeles been this week?” He was all charm and friendliness as she settled, crossing her legs under her pencil skirt at the knee, primly sitting up straight in her no-nonsense suit.

“Tedious,” she said honestly, though she didn’t explain to him why. “Still, it’s work that had to be done.”

“Of course,” he leaned back into his own, rather large leather chair, regarding her from across the cluttered expanse of his desk. “Did you get a chance to chat with Tony after all?”

She suspected he knew she didn’t. “No, unfortunately, we’ve not been able to connect.”

She would give Stane this, he was a very good actor when he wanted to be. “Ahh, well, it’s still difficult for him, I know. Have you given much thought into our discussion from the gala?”

Peggy arched an eyebrow at him as she gave the impression of deep consideration. “What purpose would you have for someone like myself?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You’re clearly very resourceful. Smart, elegant, charismatic, a woman who takes the opportunity when she gets it. I think we can bring you on somewhere.”

“Outside of a handful of meetings, you and I have barely spoken. What gave you that impression of me?”

“I’ve been asking around,” he smiled, flipping through some files on his desk.

“So you said,” Peggy watched as he pulled one stack over to sit in front of him. “You also said you didn’t find much.”

“Oh, I didn’t,” he assured her with a wry grin. “Not at first, at least. I mean, I know you said a SHIELD employee would work hard to hide their identity, and I own that was a good excuse, very sensible too, but I know people who know people, even in SHIELD, and I’m very good at finding the information I want when I want it.”

Curiosity and dread mingled as she cocked a crooked smile that was more confident than Peggy felt in the moment. “And what makes you so confident I have anything to hide?”

“Who doesn’t have anything to hide? Obviously, I do, else you wouldn’t be trying to talk to Tony, now would you?” A sharp edge finally cut through his charm, predatory and confident all at once. “You play cards at all, Miss Carter?”

“I’ve played a fair amount, yes.” She refused to quake even as she could guess that Stane was well aware the jig was up. “How about yourself?”

“Oh, I’ve played it in my time. What do you say we lay our cards on the table, you and I?”

“That is something of a gamble. You sure that’s what you want?”

"SHIELD wouldn’t be SHIELD if you didn’t already know the truth, so let’s be honest with each other in our negotiations. Let me guess, you know about arms dealing behind the scenes? Figured out how Stark weaponry is getting in the hands of those outside of regulated channels?”

“That wasn’t a particularly hard trail to follow,” Peggy hedged, letting him think what he would on how they found out. “A rather handy side business you have there.”

“Thank you, took me years to build it up.”

“All under the Starks’ noses?” She just did hide her outrage at that.

“That wasn’t hard to do at all, neither of them paid attention.” Stane lazily pulled a file, flicking it open. “Howard was always caught up in something else - the Arc Reactor, his alcoholism, his marriage problems, SHIELD.”

His knowledge of Howard's connection to SHIELD did catch Peggy by surprise, but she didn’t flinch as Stane eyed her, speculative. “Yeah, I figured that part out ages ago. Pity he never told Tony, it might have smoothed some things out between the two of them, but you know, it worked out for me in the end. All Tony ever saw of his father was a bitter, overworked man who just wanted his kid to stop being a show off idiot for once in his life. Howard never knew what he got in that kid, you know. Damn shame.”

Peggy swallowed hard before speaking. “You were dealing with the Ten Rings, then?”

“Sure,” he replied without even a hint of shame. “As was the US, the UK, most of the NATO allies, really, and Russia, Iran, Israel, all the usual suspects. Those guys were well connected, so it was hardly just me they were buying from. Just happened to be me who profited the most.”

“Why?”

Stane hardly seemed perturbed by the hint of criticism from her. “That’s how you play the game of global strategy. You work in the game, you know this. We don’t like Communists, so we go and fund governments and leaders who are friendly to the West. The Soviets don’t like the West. They foster Communist regimes in post-colonial nations. Having a bit of a diplomatic spat with a country? Give money and arms to a group you know gives them problems to distract them enough to get your way? In the middle of a particularly nasty election cycle? Stir up a terrorist threat somewhere and make everyone afraid enough they don’t care that we have to go to war. Or you could just do it because there are resources there you want to take, oil, diamonds, uranium, you name it.”

Peggy knew of these things in theory thanks to her weeks of study and through general osmosis in her months at SHIELD, but she hadn’t lived through this harsh, Cold War world. The idea of the jaded, casual view Stane had on the taking of life for political and economic gain, nauseated her. “That is a cynical take on the world.”

“Cynical or not, it is how the world operates, and I’m a businessman who is playing the cards I have in front of me. Right or wrong, it’s made Stark Industries into the international powerhouse it is today, far more than any of Tony’s new toys and gadgets.”

“What would your old friend Howard have to say about what you’ve turned his company into,” Peggy shot back, mildly, tamping down her anger at the outrage of what Stane was suggesting.

“You mean Howard Stark, the man who built his empire off of selling weapons to the Allies during the war? The same man who outfitted the United States government for decades? The same one who helped to create an espionage organization just to control global politics? That Howard Stark?”

He was taunting her, but Peggy didn’t take the bait. “You obviously didn’t tell him about any of it when he was alive, so you had to have an inkling that he would lodge some objection.”

Stane response was to only laugh out loud at that. “You are smart, very, very smart. Yeah, alright, I knew Howard wouldn’t go for it. After that Anton Vanko situation with the Arc Reactor research, I knew he’d never go for anything less than legal. He’d been burned by that once before.”

“Had he?” She kept her tone to polite curiosity. It only made Stane more amused, the corners of his wide mouth curling up to a smirk that narrowed his bright eyes to dark slits. Chuckling, he carefully picked up the folder in front of him to turn it around and place it before her on the desk.

“I think you of all people would know, after all, someone who looked very much like you got him off the hook when he was wanted for selling weapons to enemies of the United States.”

Peggy only let her eyes flicker to the black and white photo on the top, one of her infernal photographs that Howard had plastered practically everywhere. Internally she swore, loudly, as panic set her heart to beating erratically, but outwardly she shrugged, giving Stane as dubious an expression as she could manage. “Something of a likeness, I do admit.”

“Strange how that works,” Stane replied, lacing his fingers over his middle as he leaned back, relaxed, the leather of his chair creaking with the shift. “Same face, same name, same accent I imagine, being that she was English.”

“Ahh, well, everyone did say I looked just like her. Good thing they named me for her, isn’t it?”

Doubt never crossed Stane’s smugness. “There is no record for a Margaret Carter with SHIELD before nine months ago. There was a rather interesting FBI report, however, from 1949. A young woman, Margaret “Peggy” Carter, age 27, matching your exact description, said to be a senior operative and director at SHIELD, who disappeared on New Years Eve coming home from a party at Howard Stark’s Manhattan residence. Multiple investigations, including one from SHIELD, turned up not a whole lot. She just...vanished.”

“So they said,” Peggy calmly rejoindered, all the while her brain spinning as she tried to piece together who could have possibly leaked information like this? Not that SHIELD had tried very hard to keep it secret, heaven knew the entire agency was aware of it. How could they not be when Howard had stuck her picture up in every goddamn building with the SHIELD logo on it? It was so open she was sure someone likely mentioned it off handed to someone else, not even thinking, which meant Stane had his own eyes and ears in SHIELD.

Stane studied her, watching her with distant, cool appreciation. “You are good, very good. So, tell me, how did they manage it? I know SHIELD is up to some insane stuff they never talk about, all hushed up in their labs. They think we don’t know about it, but you hear things. So what is it? You look too much like the real deal for a simple case of brainwashing someone who looks similar to the original. My bet is cloning, then memory implantation.”

“If this is some sort of joke, Mr. Stane…”

“No joke, Miss Carter.” His affability turned dour on a dime. “I am putting my cards on the table. I know who you are, I know why SHIELD sent you on this errand, I know why you are so interested in Tony Stark. I have a pretty good idea you know what I’ve been up to as well.”

So here they were, at an impasse.

Peggy decided to cut through the Gordian knot rather than to continue to stare at it. “So, if you know I’m aware of you and your dealings, why bring me in.”

“Like I told you, you're smart, capable, good at what you do. You know all the shit I have and I know something about you as well.” He nodded at the file. “We are grown up, reasonable adults, Miss Carter. We can come to an agreement.”

“On what?” She couldn’t believe he had the gall to even suggest this. “A mad story about a dead woman who appeared out of nowhere to investigate Tony Stark’s disappearance?”

“Oh, I don’t deny it’s mad. But you see, I start talking and there are a lot of my friends, my very dear business associates, who might start asking a lot of awkward questions regarding SHIELD and some of their scientific research, people who know people on the World Security Council. The UN might start wanting a report on just what sort of biological and human experiments SHIELD is running, and I don’t know if they will appreciate that sort of thing or you because of that. And if I know a thing or two about secretive organizations like yours. They would much rather cover up their tracks and eliminate loose ends than be sentimental about it.”

Peggy latched on to that to twist it on him. “Is that what you are doing then, eliminating loose ends without sentimentality?”

“Tony? I wouldn’t say it is completely unsentimental. After all, I did watch him grow up.” Stane’s affectionate affectation sounded cloying now rather than sentimental and sad. “But Tony had his chance. I gave him every opportunity, he didn’t take it. For every stroke of brilliance on his part I’d have to waste time and money fixing yet another fuck up from him. I’m here, keeping this global enterprise afloat, while he’s balls deep in cocaine and hookers and then looking at me to somehow fix it all and make it better when it all goes ass up on him. Never knew a day of responsibility in his life. Hell, Howard bailed him out of more boarding schools and jail cells than he cared to think about, but never once did he teach the kid how to really own up to his actions and what they mean, not that Howard was able to do that himself. So here I am, left holding the bag on the brat after Howard’s death. For a while, it was fine, as long as he kept cranking out new ideas and making us money, I could put up with the rest of his bullshit. After twenty years, a man gets tired of it.”

The raw resentment and frustration of Stane’s diatribe shook Peggy as she watched his scowl darken dangerously. Here was a man stewing on forty years of resentment, focusing all of that rage and frustration on a man who he had known from his infancy. The idea of it appalled her, just as much as she was heartbroken for Tony.

“You must truly hate him,” she murmured with as much quiet control as she could muster.

Her observation quelled him somewhat. “Hate? Not really, annoyed is more like it. Honestly, I’ve had this company for years. His family name may be on the building, the checks, and every bomb we ever drop, but I’m the one who runs it in reality, if not in fact. I’ve put in four decades in this place, holding it together while the Starks went and played mad engineer in the corner, and what do I get out of it? I’m left to clean up the messes they make. And there is Tony. It’s not enough he got to inherit all of Howard’s genius, he has the company I poured all my work into.”

“One could say his genius is part of why there is a company.”

“Please, engineers are a dime a dozen here, and they all can come up with perfectly lethal weapons that do their job without the bells and whistles. Sure, Tony's brilliant. He has changed the entire game. But there will be other Tonys. CalTech and MIT are crawling with them. You don’t need a genius to build a better bomb.”

That was what he was banking on, at least. Peggy wasn’t so sure his gamble would pay off. “So where do I fit in this picture?”

His triumph beamed as he flipped his chair forward. “Now that’s what I’m talking about! Reasonable adults coming to an understanding.”

Stane reached across the desk, to the file with her face sitting on top of it, snag it to pull it closer to him with his long fingers. “Tell SHIELD if they lay off their investigation, I’ll keep quiet about their science experiments. They leave this alone, I leave them alone.”

“All right,” she murmured smoothly, an easy enough lie. “And what do I get out of it?”

“Ahhh, well, glad to know that whatever you are, clone, brainwashed spy, you aren’t as high and mighty as I heard the real Peggy Carter was.” He seemed pleased by this. “If you get them to stand down, perhaps you and I can talk about future ventures, ways we can bring Stark Industries and my work to SHIELD, ways I feel could benefit everyone around, especially yourself. After all, we were all once so close together, before Howard’s death. We could be again.”

There was another suggestion in that, one regarding her and closeness. It struck her again how subtle Stane was with it. She was sure it had wooed many other clients and potential bed partners. He wasn’t even hiding the fact he was interested in the latter, and she sighed, using that uncomfortable truth to her advantage. “I’m willing to consider it if you agree to not harm Tony Stark. Remove him from his company if you must, but don’t harm him. He’s got powerful friends of his own looking out for him.”

Stane’s gaze narrowed, but he shrugged amiably in agreement. “Done. I’ll leave him to his surfboards and bevvy of beautiful women. His trust fund is rich enough to keep him in high style for a while. I just want what I worked for.”

Peggy wanted to believe him, but didn’t. “I’ve seen the video, Stane, of your friends in Afghanistan. How do I know you aren’t going to pay someone else off to make it look like an unfortunate accident?”

“No wonder SHIELD loves you. You’re as paranoid as Fury,” he groused. “I won’t lay a hand on his head. Do we have a deal?”

Peggy would rather punch him in his straight teeth. Instead, she rose, holding out a hand. “I’ll talk to Fury and see what he agrees to.”

Stane looked ready to protest, but at her glare gave in. He took her hand to shake firmly. “I look forward to seeing what he says. And even if he isn’t in favor of it, perhaps you and I can work out a more personal arrangement.”

Peggy let her mouth curl up in a vague way, promising nothing. “Perhaps, I’ll have to think about it.”

“Don’t think too long. I think it would be unfortunate to all parties involved if we let it drag out too long.”

Peggy heard the implied threat loud and clear. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Stane nodded, pleased by the answer. “Right, let me show you out then. Care to see the facilities at all? I can arrange a tour.”

“I really should be getting back,” Peggy begged off, as much out of her urge to maim him as from her need to get back to SHIELD as soon as possible. “I have a feeling I will need some time to put this before Fury in the right way.”

“Of course,” Stane assured her, gracefully, showing her to the door and out through the main reception area. “I look forward to our future endeavors.”

There was no missing the predatory look in his eye. Peggy only just managed to make her polite goodbyes as she walked pointedly out of the office and towards the elevator beyond. She held her breath, not even pulling out her infernal phone as she waited for the doors to open, her steps firm as she sought to put as much distance between herself and Stane. Consequently, she didn’t see the lithe body just to the side of her until she clipped it with a shoulder, papers flying everywhere in a scatter on the tile floor.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” The apology flew out of her, even as the shock of dark auburn hair clicked with her as being Romanoff. The other woman staggered, a show of dismay at the mess that had turned the head of several other Stark Industries office workers, curious as to the ruckus. Without missing a beat, Peggy bent to start gathering scattered pages, full of apologies.

“What a mess! I’m so sorry, are you all right?” She started scooping up pieces of paper, heedless of any order as crouched beside a flushed Romanoff.

“Fine, just an accident! Wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking.” Her smile was friendly and open, a far cry from the Romanoff she dealt with everyday. It was her cover, Peggy realized, as she passed over the stack she had gathered with an apologetic smile.

“I don’t think I was either,” she explained, pushing herself back up as she offered a hand to Romanoff to do the same. “Bit of a difficult conversation, learning something new about a person, confirming what you suspected. But I’m all right, all things considered.”

Romanoff’s friendly smile, so out of place on her otherwise carefully neutral face, relaxed a fraction. “Well, glad to hear the last bit of that. Still, no harm, no foul.” She waived a hand at the papers in her arms.”

“Good. Again, sorry for the mess.”

“Have a good day.” With a cheery wave, she turned to go back down the hall, so fully in character it took Peggy a moment to remember this was the same taciturn woman who had resented her since she laid eyes on her.

She made her way to her vehicle, eyes roaming for anyone following her. She didn’t trust Stane not to try. He at least felt comfortable enough not to openly have someone follow her on the Stark Industries campus. Still, she had her gun holstered near the small of her back in the same sort of holder Sharon used, a more convenient method than hiding it up a skirt. She unlocked the vehicle with her fingertips, gaze wary as she got inside, pressing the button to start it.

As much as she felt overwhelmed by the high tech of the car and the traffic in the city, Peggy braved both to use the strange computer the car was included with - really, must people put computers in everything in the future - and figured out just how to dial Coulson directly as she pulled the vehicle out of the drive and into traffic.

He answered on the first ring. “Coulson.”

“We have a bit of a situation,” Peggy began without preamble, eyeing the receding Stark Industries building in the rearview window behind her. “Stane appears to be fully aware of who I am.”

Coulson swore, loudly, on the other end of the line.


	34. Chapter 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy cracks the iron curtain around Romanoff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for being a day late on a busy weekend.

Peggy would have never suspected that Coulson had fire in him.

“Stane has eyes and ears in SHIELD and that is a problem.” The glare he shot Hill over the video call could have melted the screen. How Hill was unphased by it all, Peggy would never know. 

“It’s hardly like Carter’s status is a well guarded secret.” Hill was unperturbed. “We haven’t precisely made huge efforts to hide it.”

“Maybe we should have,” Coulson snapped.

Peggy, the subject of this spat, merely frowned in annoyance between the two. “You would think I would have some say in this matter rather than the pair of you fighting over me like I was your favorite toy.”

Coulson at least had the grace to look embarrassed. Hill only gave him a pointedly triumphant look. Peggy shook her head at the two colleagues and paced the space in agitation. “All right, Stane has connections in SHIELD, we should have anticipated the potential given the connections he does have. He doesn’t know who and what I really am, but that doesn’t particularly matter. What does matter is that he believes if he can use what he thinks is going on to force SHIELD into assurance of non-interference. In exchange he says he will spare Stark’s life.”

“Do you honestly believe he is going to do that,” Hill queeried, doubtfully.

“Oh, not in a million years, I think he will wait long enough to assume we aren’t looking than make it happen in a way that appears like an accident. I imagine if he drives Stark from his own company he will be doing plenty of things Stane could use as cover. The point is that we need to act sooner rather than later.”

She turned on Coulson. “We need to get to Stark. When do you meet with Potts?”

“Tomorrow, we have an appointment later in the day.”

“Any way you could move that forward?”

Coulson rolled his eyes. “It was hard enough getting it at all. Potts doesn’t know us, certainly doesn’t know me, and is inclined to avoid anyone she thinks wants to pester Stark.”

Peggy considered. “Any way we could get to his house and get him to listen?”

“Doubtful,” Hill surmised from her end of the conversation. “His house isn’t easy to get to and is rigged with the best security system in the world run by that AI of his.”

“We couldn’t...what’s the word you all use...hack it?”

Hill shrugged. “We could for a little bit, but then you’d have to get Stark to listen.”

Therein lay the rub. “All right, how about getting a message to him?”

Hill clearly was aiming to rain on every idea she had. “Stark’s not been seen in months and has been taking no messages, even from friends. The advantage of being as rich and as powerful as him is that he can get away with doing that. I’m afraid Coulson’s the best bet.”

Peggy hated that answer, but it was where they were at.

“Why does he have to be so bloody impossible to talk to,” she muttered, spinning on her heel on another circuit. “Maybe if we get Rhodes?”

Coulson negated that. “Rhodes put his neck out enough with the military reaching out to us the first time. He’s not going to take our calls.”

“His best friend and he can’t pick up a phone for him?” All of this seemed ridiculous and over the top. Stark was one man, he shouldn’t be this ridiculous to get a hold of. “Maybe I could drive up there. I did threaten to come talk to him if he didn’t speak to me first.”

“He’d likely just have you arrested as a security breach, gets you nowhere,” Hill offered, empathetic at least. “Potts is what you got right now. Honestly, Carter, she is one of the few people I know who can get Stark to listen.”

They were right. She hated it. “Right, well, let’s hope your powers of persuasion are up to snuff, Coulson. Certainly, I’m all out of options.”

“I do my best.” He drummed his fingers against the table top in front of him. “Why not just stop Stane ourselves.”

“Arrest him?” Hill snorted as if Coulson’s idea was the silliest she heard. “With what evidence?”

“We have the communication trail.”

“That we can’t definitively link to him.”

“He confessed to Carter!”

“Hearsay at best. You know in a US court of law that’s never going to hold up!”

Peggy sighed bitterly, knowing the other woman was right. “He does have the advantage there. Everything we have on him is through guesswork and deduction, no hard evidence that links him outside of what he admitted to, and even that is a game of he said/she said. We arrest him now without a strong link to the communications and we are only tipping our hand to Stane that we don’t plan on supporting him. The minute his lawyers spring him he’s likely gone and out of the country.”

“So I suppose we just, what...hold tight?” Coulson didn’t like that one bit. In truth, neither did Peggy. 

“What could Stane possibly do in twenty-four hours,” Hill asked with the sort of philosophical hopefulness that almost begged for something to go wrong.

“Let’s hope not a lot,” Peggy muttered, fatalistically. She didn't think they were that lucky.

Their call ended. She eyed Coulson from across the conference area. “How could SHIELD keep Tony so far off their grid that they let this happen?”

For all that this was an old argument on her part, Coulson for his part didn’t look like he would contradict the point that deeply with her. “Howard didn’t want him in.”

“Stane knew Howard was a part of SHIELD, for God’s sake, and no one could bother reach out to Tony, tell him that his father helped to build this organization and at least offer to work with him to ensure he wasn’t pursued by the ghosts of his father’s past? Howard has plenty of them and it’s a small wonder none of them came up before now.”

“I don’t disagree, but it wasn’t my call.” Coulson threw up his hands, looking as frustrated as Peggy felt. “That was Howard’s call long ago, and after him it was SHIELD policy; keep the hands off his kid.”

“And look what that got him?” Peggy flung back, angry with Howard, SHIELD, Fury for going along with the stupid policy, Stane, even Tony to an extent. His own self-absorption was as much to blame in the predicament he found himself in as anything else. “SHIELD should have caught this long before it got to this point.”

“Maybe it could have, with a different person at the helm than Howard.” Coulson’s reply was quiet, but direct and pointed. Peggy blinked at him, her ire draining.

“You mean if I had stayed in the past and had been there to talk sense?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. I don’t suppose any of us will.” He shrugged. “That’s the funny thing about timelines, no matter which one you are living in, you can’t possibly know what the outcome of any decision is in the moment, I guess. Howard did what he thought was best for Tony, trying to protect him and keep him out of this craziness. It didn’t work. Now we have to pick up the pieces. I’m just hoping we can do it in time to save his son is all.”

He was right and she hated it.

Without a word, she turned out of the conference room doors, not so much angry as directionless. They were stuck, a position she detested, and with no ability to vent the frustration and nerves she made her way to the bottom levels where an onsite gym was located. It seemed to be a standard feature of most SHIELD offices, and for once she was glad of it, a safe space to work off...something. Much as Peggy hated to admit it, especially to Coulson who still held her on some sort of pedestal, Stane had gotten to her. He’d crawled under her skin and left her discombobulated and itchy, like a scab she just couldn’t pick. Like Hugh Jones and Vernon Masters, he was a man who was supremely arrogant in his own ability and with little to no moral center to guide any of it. Supercilious and pompous, confident in his own success, certain of his capability to outthink everyone, Stane had even believed he could woo her into the morally gray area he inhabited. He was a man who had spent decades slowly but surely taking whatever it was he wanted, and cared little for those who might have stood in his way. He simply removed any and all obstacles. Had Howard not died as he had, would Stane have tried to kill him as well?

It was late in the day and the facility was jammed, those staff who had already finished office shifts having come down to use the facility before spreading out to head to their various homes scattered through the city. To Peggy, who had only ever really lived in London and New York, the Angelenos' propensity to drive in from areas far outside of the city center to come to work seemed somewhat mad. Considering the amount of traffic and how long it took to get anywhere she wasn’t shocked that so much of the equipment was in use. She wandered, watching people on the stationary bikes and the elliptical machines, most with headphones in their ears and their smartphones playing music, movies, or whatever media they consumed while they ran their paces. The strangeness of the future was just how much in a bubble everyone seemed to operate in. It was nothing like the training camps she and everyone else in the army had been put through, where they all suffered communely through their sweat and pain. No matter how many hills they labored up, how many miles they panted after, how many steps they marched, they at least were all in hell together, and there was a certain comfort in that after all.

There were days, she realized, when the isolation felt a bit too heavy.

She stopped in her steps wandering the padded, musty area to glance at a dance studio in front of her. That seemed to be a feature of modern facilities, a place where they could do a variety of different types of exercises involving movement. Inside she caught several agents, one of whom was Romanoff, all working at a long barre along a mirror. Peggy watched, wandering to the window that enclosed the space, watching as they all bent and stretched. They were barefoot, save Romanoff, who was slipping her feet into toe shoes of cream colored satin. The other women were clearly done with whatever they were doing, however, as several wiped faces and foreheads off with towels, chattering with Romanoff as they did, companionable and friendly. Peggy didn’t think she’d ever see the operative so open with anyone, and yet there she was, laughing and showing off some sort of stretching maneuver to another woman, just like any friends would do.

In a cluster of twos and threes the other women left, all with parting farewells as they wandered to a dressing room. Romanoff was left to her own devices in the room. At some spoken command, music began to play, a ballet that Peggy was vaguely familiar with, not a well known one, but one familiar enough that she recalled it from long ago and far away in some long forgotten and much hated piano lesson. Romanoff clearly knew it well as she nodded her head in time to the music, her long, auburn hair up in a bun at the back of it. Gracefully, she rose from the pale, golden wood of the floor, stretching and rolling her shoulders as she moved in step with the music.

Peggy had never learned how to dance ballet herself. Her mother had tried, once, thinking such an outlet would be a good way of teaching gracefulness to her energetic daughter, but it never stuck. Much like piano had, ballet had gone the way of many of the lessons for a lady of Peggy’s youth, and while Peggy had many other accomplishments to be proud of, there was a small part of her that wished she could be half as graceful as the woman in front of her. She stretched and curved herself, arms looking long and supple despite Romanoff’s compact height. She looked to be all the things that Amanda Carter had wanted Peggy to be. She also happened to be able to do many of the things Peggy could as well. A perfect synthesis, Peggy thought with no small amount of disgruntlement.

For long moments, Peggy simply watched, wandering to the door to enter, saying nothing as Romanoff continued to step, lightly and beautifully, her eyes closed, as if in memory of whatever performance she had danced long ago. Nothing about it was showy or flash, there were no pirouettes or leaps, though Peggy had no doubt she could do them. It was a dance much like Romanoff herself, beautiful and exquisite to look at, but nothing to draw your attention and hold it for too long.

When the music stopped, so too did Romanoff. She stilled, her eyes opening, as her head swiveled to meet Peggy, a knowing look on her face. “No applause, then?”

“I didn’t want to startle you,” Peggy admitted, hands clasped in front of her as she leaned against the door.

“You wouldn’t have. I knew you were there.” She shrugged, her shoulders bare under a sleeveless top, a fine sheen of sweat over them. “Not my best moves, but I’m still working on it.”

Peggy remembered Hill and Coulson observing her months ago. “Coulson said you were injured.”

“Shot.” She rubbed a spot just above her left hip bone with vague indifference. “KGB was after an Iranian scientist I was transporting. Nearly took me out while they were getting to him. They had to shoot through me. Another few centimeters and my future dance career would be over.”

She uttered that with a dry humor that Peggy occasionally heard her use with Coulson, more often with Barton, but never with her. “You wanted to be a dancer once?”

“No,” she replied, simply, snagging a white towel that hung over the barre to wipe at her face. “Just happened to learn it.”

Peggy recalled long ago that Dottie Underwood had said she was a ballet dancer. She hadn’t figured out if it was a cover or not, but knowing what little she did know of the girls and their training it was possible they had all learned it as a matter of course, part of their unnatural discipline. What little she had seen of Dottie’s deadly grace, as well as Natasha’s, she wouldn’t be surprised. 

Romanoff placed one foot daintily on the barre, stretching the leg, muscles flexing as she eyed Peggy with curiosity. “Did you have something you wanted to discuss or are you a patron of the arts?”

Romanoff had a way of always sounding cutting in every word she said. “Not especially, no. I happened to wander down here and saw you. Had a meeting with Stane today. He is aware we know about him, now. More than that, he knows I’m Peggy Carter, or at least a woman who looks and talks like she is the Peggy Carter who disappeared in 1949.”

On the whole, Romanoff was a woman Peggy had a unique trouble getting a beat on. Even when she was very young, Peggy had prided herself on her ability to read people and their motivations, but Romanoff had remained a mystery, a woman who buried herself below so many levels of truth and lies that few people could ever really say they knew her. Considering her life and occupation, this was an asset far more than a hindrance. But even Romanoff had tells, just more easily concealed ones. Peggy could see hers as she leaned over her leg, a stiffness in her spine, a tightness in her jaw, minute as it was. It was only noticeable because she was trying to be flexible and graceful in the moment, standing out all the more.

Peggy waited till she was upright again, switching legs at the barre before she said anything. “Did you know he suspected who I was?”

“Know? Not really.” Romanoff’s casualness belied the tension that was still there as she reached over to stretch her body. She rose again, lowering her leg. “Stane doesn’t precisely talk to paralegals in the office.

“But you knew he was investigating my origins?”

“Makes sense he would. Stane’s not an idiot, he wouldn’t have gotten this far if he was. You were sniffing around Tony, he wanted to know who his competition was.”

She was right, but that didn’t explain the tension and caution. “So his running theory is either I’m an agent who has been made to think she is Peggy Carter or a clone of the original, both of which sound fantastical to me. He seems to believe SHIELD is up to that sort of business and is willing to keep his mouth shut on his suspicions of SHIELD’s illegal activities if we don’t interfere with his plans to remove Stark from his company.”

There was the tell again, faint but there. Romanoff was busying herself with her stretches, avoiding her eyes. “Sounds like he feels pretty confident in his assessment.”

“He sounds cuckoo is what he sounds like, an idea out of one of your modern science fiction films. Imagine, cloning or wiping someone’s mind, making them think they are someone else?”

Romanoff only met her question with careful silence as she took on another pose. Peggy had hit a nail on the head, then.

“Except you can imagine it, can’t you,” Peggy asked, quietly, finally seeing a chink in the impenetrable armor that was Natasha Romanoff.

“I can believe a lot of things, Director Carter,” she drawled, formally, as she stood perpendicular to the barre, her knees bent outwards as she flexed down. “I’ve seen a lot of strange things in my lifetime.”

“Like clones?”

“They cloned a sheep when I was twelve-years-old. I’ve grown up in a world where cloning living creatures is a thing.”

“Humans, though?” In a futuristic world where she carried a small computer in her pocket, Peggy couldn’t quite wrap her head around that.

“Stranger things have happened.”

This was maddening, Peggy decided, irritated with Romanoff’s evasiveness. “Why do you hate me?”

That earned an arched looked from the other woman who didn’t stop her movements. “I don’t.”

“You certainly don’t like me.”

“Do I have to?” Her question wasn’t sarcastic, merely inquisitive.

“No, but your hostility is quite apparent and I want to know why.”

“To push you.” It was her quick, off the cuff reply. “Everyone has a breaking point, something that gets under their skin. You dislike people being dismissive of you and your capabilities, of belittling you or talking down to you.”

It clicked with Peggy what she was up to. “You were testing me.”

Romanoff rewarded her with the smallest of smiles. “In part, yes.”

“Why?” Anger snapped out before Peggy could stop it, feeling nettled and somewhat violated.

“For Fury.” She straightened to her full height, turning to put her back against the glass, leaning against the barre. “He wanted to know my assessment of you. It’s not unusual, he does it from time-to-time when he needs eyes and ears on people.”

“He doesn’t trust me is what your saying,” she muttered, something cold, hurt, and angry curdling inside of her.

“No, he does, absolutely...well as much as he trusts anybody, that is. Fury is a singularly paranoid person.”

“Enough to have you spy on me?”

“Less spy, just observe as we worked together. He couldn’t ask Coulson to do it, he hero worships you and Steve Rogers. He’s like a walking history book, he could never be objective. Sharon is your niece and friend, so she was out, as were Agents Kim and Burk.”

All of that made sense, Peggy supposed, grimly. “And Agent Barton?”

“Barton has many, many gifts, but understanding people isn’t one of them.”

“He seems to think he understands you.”

That did seem to warm Romanoff a bit. “He has a big heart, Barton, especially for lost and broken animals.”

Peggy took note of the phrasing of Romanoff’s words. There was a story there, she was sure, but she would have to delve into that another time. “So all this drama and discomfort was in part to put stress on me and see if I broke?”

“Got to hand it to you, Carter, you are just as tough as they always said you were.” There was a hint of impudence in Romanoff’s compliment, but Peggy didn’t think it was completely true either. There was something else there, something she wasn’t copping to.

“I have to admit Fury questioning me surprises me,” Peggy carried on, the hurt of that real enough. “He seemed to accept me readily enough when I first came in.”

“Don’t take it to heart, Fury doesn’t trust anyone completely. It keeps him alive doing that.”

“Does he think I’m a clone or a mind-controlled deep agent?” Peggy posed the question bluntly, hoping to see which way Romanoff broke. It didn’t surprise her that when she cut right to the heart of the matter, Romanoff’s stoic expression slammed down as she tried to shut Peggy out of digging any further.

“He doesn’t share his ideas with me.”

“No, but he did set you to watch me. He told me he did a DNA test and matched me to Sharon, said that with that and the letter I wrote to Howard he believed I was the real deal. So why would he send you to watch me?”

“Because he can’t trust 100% that you are you,” she returned, flatly. “Because you are a woman who disappeared in 1949 and suddenly waltzed into a door alive and with no explanation except a crazy story on time travel. Because SHIELD doesn’t do cloning or brainwashing, but there are people who do, people who have no compulsion in kidnapping women and manipulating them into spies who can infiltrate organizations like SHIELD in the hope that they can gain access to them. Those things do happen, all the time, and we couldn’t be sure you weren’t that.”

And therein lay the rub. “Is that Fury’s assessment or yours?”

Romanoff wasn’t apologetic. “Fury asked me my opinion. Given the relationship with SHIELD and the Soviets at the time, everyone assumed you died at the hands of Leviathan or the KGB. When you came wandering into the New York office they ran every test they could find on your DNA, all of it coming back as you being the real deal. Fury wanted to know if Russia had any way of creating someone who could pass for Peggy Carter, someone who could infiltrate and fool everyone.”

The very idea unsettled Peggy with its impossible wrongness. “And can they?”

Romanoff was circumspect for long moments, eyes burning a hole into the floor in front of her. “They can do many things, sure, up to and including twisting a person’s mind and personality till they forget who they were, who they are, what they ever could have been. They can turn a person into a machine, an automaton, a psychopath, make people into empty shells to be inhabited by any personality or cover they want. But the one thing they can’t do is make human flesh lie. They don’t have the technology to clone a whole person, and even if they did they couldn’t grow them fast enough to be an adult. If the genetics say you are Peggy Carter then that’s who you are. I suppose we just have to accept that time travel exists, whether we like it or not.”

“Not for a few years yet,” Peggy qualified, feeling vaguely sick at what Romanoff described. While she was relieved that they had yet to figure out how to make another human out of whole cloth, the idea of what she did describe, of how a person could be broken down, stripped of their personality and identity, turned into something else completely and against their will horrified her. It made her think of Dottie. Poor, mad, brilliant, dangerous Dottie.

The words tumbled out before she could catch them. “I once knew a woman just like you.”

Peggy regretted it almost as soon as she said it. She could see Romanoff stiffen against the mirror. “I don’t hear that very often.”

“Her name was Dottie, at least that was the name she went by when I knew her.” Despite all of her searches Peggy had never found her true name. She’d always been curious. “She was like you, raised in a special school where they trained girls to be spies and assassins, forced them to kill. She used to be handcuffed to her bed at night, unable to escape.”

That only earned the smallest eyebrow twitch from the other woman. “That was the old method. They used to do that in the early days with the girls so they wouldn’t run away at night. They stopped doing that long before my time.”

“For what purpose,” Peggy found herself blurting, the long ago horror of it still fresh in her mind. “They were just children!”

“Children who might have been dead otherwise,” Romanoff countered, quietly. “In the early years it was seen as a benefit. The Soviets needed highly trained soldiers and capable warriors, and they had too many mouths to feed and no place for children who lacked homes and families. When the country is wracked with starvation and famine no one is going to miss a few parentless girls.”

“But they broke them!”

“Yes,” Romanoff’s answer was harsh and cold, painfully matter-of-fact. “It did break them. Those who were strong survived.”

Peggy couldn’t understand it. Perhaps she didn’t want to. “You must have been very strong indeed.”

“Strong enough,” she murmured, unflinching. “Though, to be honest, surviving was really the easy part for me.”

Having seen her in her deadly dance with Barton, Peggy could believe that. “What was the hard part?”

“Walking away from it.” She lifted her chin, fire shining in her green eyes. “That, Director Carter, was far harder than you could ever imagine.”

Peggy thought of Dottie, of their few conversions. She had always envied Peggy her freedom, even when Peggy felt she didn’t have much of it at all. “Why did you do it?”

Romanoff studied her for long, quiet moments. Peggy could feel her examining her, picking her apart as she stood there, trying to be as impassive as Romanoff. Whatever the other woman found, it seemed to satisfy her, as she nodded, once, then pushed off from the glass.

“That is a story for another time, preferably over shots of some alcoholic beverages and some horribly greasy food.”

It wasn’t an offer of friendship, but it was at least a thawing of relations. Peggy took it for what it was. “Perhaps sometime I can take you up on that offer.”

Romanoff nodded, wandering to the middle of the room. Peggy sensed she was being dismissed and turned to go, pushing away from the door. Romanoff’s voice stilled her with a simple question called back over her shoulder.

“Why did she do it?”

Peggy paused, realizing she meant Dottie. “I couldn’t tell you, really. I didn’t even know her outside of our few meetings. She was...a bit like you described earlier, a person who had been broken, her mind and person shattered. They do horribly things to little girls in this world, and I think for once she wanted to be free of that.”

“To be a good person?” The question was soft, floating quietly behind Romanoff.

“A good person? No, I don’t know if Dottie knew what that was anymore. I do think she wanted to be a free person, to build a life that someone else didn’t control. And...I think she wanted a friend, someone to see her, to understand her. I think that is why she gravitated to me.”

Romanoff turned her head ever so slightly to glance back at Peggy. “Were you that? Her friend?”

“No...and maybe yes. It’s complicated.” Peggy wished she could understand it more herself. “I think I was simply a person who saw her for who and what she was and not an object, a tool, a weapon. I was someone she felt equal to intellectually, who could respect her capabilities. I don’t know, maybe she appreciated that we both were women living lies in a world that continually told us we couldn’t be who we really were, that refused to see what we were capable of. I don’t know.”

Romanoff’s only response was to nod, turning her face to look forward once again. “Thanks. Maybe we can chat more sometime.”

With that Peggy turned to leave, just as Romanoff called for the AI in the room to play some music with a title uttered in near flawless French. Peggy watched her enter her first moves for a long moment, considering the other woman, before turning to leave the area, her restlessness quelled for the moment. Instead, she mused, she felt the need for a glass of wine in the giant bathtub in her room, and a moment of peace and solitude. Romanoff had given her much to think about.


	35. Chapter 35

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy discovers just what Stane has been up to in the basement.

Unlike New York and London, whose mass transit systems Peggy knew like the back of her hand, Los Angeles barely had one to speak of. When she’d first visited long ago they’d had something of one, a system of red trolleys that ran lines up and down the streets of the city. Between her time and now those had clearly been phased out, replaced by loud, slow, lumbering busses that blocked traffic on the narrow streets of the city and seemed to be as much nuisance as they were help. Sometime between that time and this one, however, they had attempted a subway system, a network of trains that spread out of the city center and connected various pieces of the sprawling landscape to one another. Deep underneath the feet of most people in downtown rumbled a train they called the Red Line, much like the trolley cars of old, that seem to traverse most of the more important parts of the downtown area and Peggy took it from where she was staying to the are of the city dubbed the Civic Center, one stop and a several block walk travel away from where she stayed. She emerged on a part of the city that appeared much more official in the sort of stuffy way that Washington DC had become.

The police headquarters for the city was a glittering building in this complex, concrete and glass, looking rather like a vice holding a crystal cube between its pincers than a proper building, but as Peggy was learning with all modern structures they seemed to be more art than architecture anymore. A large office building, she made her way inside, quickly scanning a directory for the floor she wanted before making her way to the closest lift. It opened to a shining, airy space, with signs directing visitors, one of which read “Records” in bold, black letters. Peggy followed the arrows to a door into a large office, a receptionist sitting behind a counter, her face obscured by the screen in front of her.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes, I’m Director Peggy Carter with SHIELD.” She pulled out the badge she rarely ever used to flash to the young woman whose name plate proclaimed her as Analisa Flores. “I called regarding a file that would have been in your old records, for Daniel Sousa? I have a file number.”

She passed along a sheet of paper from the hotel, the number written in neat numbers as the young woman took it, glanced at Peggy’s badge, then nodded, reaching for a clipboard. “If you could sign and date here I’ll go get that for you. I can’t let you take the file but I can make copies of any or all pages you need.”

“Thank you,” Peggy murmured as the young woman moved to the back of the office where file clerks and other office workers all went about their duties, oblivious to the woman in her dark suit. Like as not Peggy was hardly an uncommon sight, which left her to muse not for the first time on how times had changed. A woman in her role would have been strange enough to elicit surprise not so long ago. Now a woman with a badge hardly raised an eyebrow.

“It’s an old file, right?” The young woman returned, holding a large, yellow envelope filled with paperwork in her hand.

“Yes, I believe the date is July 1955?”

“That was around when dad was born,” she noted, conversationally, taking the clipboard Peggy handed back and filling in a number beside Peggy’s own name. “That’s kind of old!”

“You have no idea,” Peggy chuckled, her memory rebelling against the idea of Daniel and her former life being old. She glanced at a cluster of cubbies with chairs and tables to spread out at. “Might I take this over here to review?”

“Of course, just make note of what you want or need. No marking the paperwork or altering it in any fashion, no food or drink around it, please.”

“Understood.” Peggy took the packet and wandered over to a spot in the middle of the row, setting herself up comfortably. The packet front was printed and labeled with the case number and Daniel’s name as she flipped it over, unwinding the string that bound the two, circular tabs together and allowed her to pull out the official looking, manila folder, the shield of the Los Angeles Police Department printed on its front. She flipped it open, leafing through the ancient, typewritten files, familiar to her from the cases she had worked on so long ago.

It didn’t take her very long to realize there wasn’t much more there than SHIELD had in their own files on the subject. The LAPD had a history with dealing with the SSR and SHIELD and had clearly learned that they would rarely get any new or different information out of the organization, usually even less as it would all be labeled as classified. There were the same pictures that the SHIELD file contained, some different witness accounts from the Roosevelt Hotel, all sketchy at best. Those who could even claim they heard or saw anything, and they were few, said they merely saw a man in a trenchcoat get gunned down before falling into the pool. The only descriptions of the man provided were that he was of average height and build, dark haired and carrying a cane, all of which was less than helpful. There were no pictures of the body face up and the only account was that the LA County coroner's office had lost the body somewhere, a fact that had ended up with a full investigation of the department and its practices and several lost jobs once Howard got his hands on it.

There was one interesting tidbit that she did find in the file, however, an account of one guest, an older woman who swore she saw a man fitting Daniel’s very description being shot by a man in a darker suit, before being dragged somewhere. That description was also maddeningly vague as it could have been any man at the Roosevelt Hotel in 1955; average height, average build, closely cropped, thinning dark hair. It could have been an assassin or criminal, it was hard to say, but nothing about him screamed unusual. She had hoped, vaguely, that she might find evidence of Scott Lang’s hand in all of this, someone in a strange suit with unusual technology who appeared and disappeared out of nowhere. That was sadly not the case.

With a sigh, she put the file back in its envelope, wrapping the tab once more before walking it back up to the waiting receptionist. “Thank you for this.”

“Of course,” she smiled, bidding Peggy a good day as she made it out the door. That led precisely nowhere. She was being frustrated at every corner, first with Stark and Stane, then with Steve, and now with Sousa. Guilt gnawed on her as she wandered back through the hall to the elevator, thinking of that night only months ago, and yet decades ago. Had she stayed there, faced up to the mess she made and the heart she had broken, maybe they could have still been friends. At the very least, she could have been heading up SHIELD when he went missing. Perhaps she could have found out more, discovered more, done...something? She wasn’t sure what. 

She wasn’t even sure why the guilt was talking. She had turned down his proposal, yes, and she meant it now as much as she meant it then, but she had hurt him. She hadn’t wanted to, hadn’t meant to do it. It was only when he kneeled there on Howard’s balcony that she realized she couldn’t be with him, not the way he wanted, not the way he deserved. They would never have made each other happy, not for long term anyway. She never felt as if he made heads or tails of who she was as a person, alternately admiring her and trying to protect her. All she ever wanted was an equal, a man who was happy just letting her be herself, who didn’t feel the need to define who he was in relation to her.

A small, dark voice in the back of her mind pointed out that all she had ever wanted, really, was Steve Rogers. As much as she didn’t want to listen to it, she knew it was right. It was the same desire that had listened to Scott Lang in the first place, the same one that had agreed to head up Fury’s insane plan for the Avengers Initiative, the part of her that waited breathlessly for word from the Arctic on whether the _Valkyrie_ had been found. She had wanted Steve. The man she actually did want to be with, to tie herself to, was a man who currently was buried beneath feet of ice. She had given up everything - her family, her friends, the agency she had started - for that chance to be with him. She had barely hesitated in saying yes. She had hesitated with Daniel, a man who was good and honest and kind and wonderful. And she felt guilty that she felt that way. And now he was gone, possibly dead, but wherever he was she felt that she had let him down, had failed him by not saying yes, by not staying.

It was a long walk back to the subway platform.

She spent the trip lost in thought, watching a woman reading a book across from a pair of teenagers displaying the sort of affection that would have been called scandalous in her day, at least on a subway car. She rode the single stop to Pershing Square, alighting in the middle of the high rises of the city, her mind anywhere and everywhere but the buzzing sound coming from her purse.

She frowned, glancing down at the bag before pulling it open, grabbing her phone from inside. There waiting for her were half a dozen calls from a SHIELD number and one text message from Coulson saying “We got it and this has gotten bigger. Where are you?”

She didn’t blink as she called him back, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. Coulson answered on the first ring. “Pershing Square, downtown, not far from the hotel.”

“Got it. I’m sending a team to you right now.”

“How hot is it?”

“Potts has what we need, but Stane’s on the move. He knows she has figured it out.”

“Which means Stark will know.” The domino effect of that left Peggy’s head spinning. “He will need to act now rather than wait.”

“It gets much worse than that. You know the suit Stark made in Afghanistan to get out? He got it and has been working on a model of it for weeks. If it is half of what Stark thought of...this is bigger than even we imagined.”

“I don’t know, I am well aware of how big Starks think and just how dangerous that can be sometimes.” Around a corner a dark SUV came tearing up the street, stopping in front of Peggy with tires screeching. “Here is my ride.”

“See you in a bit.”

Agent Solarzano was behind the wheel as she climbed in. “You spoke with Coulson?”

“Just now. We headed to Stark Industries?”

“Yeah, in rush hour.” Solarzano did not look thrilled with this idea. “Thank God for the HOV lane.”

Peggy, unaware of what that was, silently agreed as he took off into traffic. Behind her sat two more agents whose names she hadn’t caught, but who introduced themselves as Agent Cargill and Agent Lewis. Both seemed slightly stunned to see Peggy Carter in the seat in front of them.

“Right, did Coulson brief you all on the situation?”

“Yes, ma’am,” they said in unison in a way that should have been disturbing when Peggy thought about it. She at least was saved having to explain it herself.

“Do we know if Stane is aware of what is happening.”

Solarzano shook his large head as he capably weaved through traffic to a wide open lane on the highway, picking up speed as he did. “Didn’t say, but he’s with Miss Potts right now just in case.”

That caught Peggy’s attention. “Was she threatened?”

“Don’t think so. I think it’s just a precaution.”

This case kept getting better and better. “Right, do we know where Stane is now?”

“Last eyes saw him on the Stark Industries campus. His car is still there, so he likely is as well.”

Maybe this would make apprehending him easier. Somewhere, she thought she could hear Jack Thompson laughing at her.

It took them nearly thirty minutes through traffic to make it to the Stark Industries campus, tearing into the area where Coulson already stood with a cluster of other agents and Miss Potts. Stark’s personal assistant stared at them all with a pointedly polite smile despite the worry and doubt hiding beneath her poise. She looked decidedly out of place in her neat, black pencil skirt and top, in heels so thin that Peggy wondered how she didn’t fall over in them.

Coulson quickly made the introductions. “Miss Potts, allow me to introduce Director Peggy Carter. She’s been heading up this investigation and was the one instrumental in finding Mr. Stark in Afghanistan.”

That lit up the other woman’s face somewhat as she took Peggy’s hand. “Oh my God, thank you so much. If it weren’t for you…” She trailed off, a troubled look rising to the fore. “There are a lot of people here who care for Tony a lot. You gave him back to us.”

“We aren’t out of the woods yet,” Peggy looked to Coulson. “You told her what we found out on those files.”

“Everything about Stane’s arms deals over the years and his efforts to get Stark killed.”

“I have more evidence on my side,” the other woman hopped in. “Agent Coulson said you all had the information but couldn’t link it to Obadiah, but I have it...the proof that is. He was hiding it on secret servers. Tony figured out how to crack into them, that’s was why I was in the office, downloading it all.”

Coulson held up a key fob which he passed to another agent, who sealed it in a plastic bag and went to tuck it safely inside the vehicle he had used. “It’s enough to put him away for a while and then some. I have a feeling that the FBI and CIA are going to want to have a chat with Stane on some of his activities.”

“I’ll say,” Peggy muttered. “So where is he?”

“Unclear, we have agents looking for him now. In the meantime, Miss Potts found out about Stane and Stark’s prototype suit.”

“It’s in the files,” Potts waved at the car the agent had walked away to. “Tony used the suit to escape in Afghanistan. Obadiah used it as the basis for blueprints of a prototype all of his own, a bigger machine he hoped to profit off of once Tony was out of the picture. He’s been working on it for a while, but just recently set up shop under the Arc Reactor.”

Peggy looked to the large building she knew held the generator. “Why?”

“No one goes down there, mostly,” she replied. “Also, the reactor itself tends to mask any major detection. No one could hear what you are doing down there and he could build near the lab if he needed.”

“The one problem he had was how to power it,” Coulson explained. “Looking at his schematics, something with the computational and firepower that thing has would need to have a large power source, which isn't conducive to mobility. He’d need several car batteries just to make it go. So, he went to Afghanistan to grab the original and see how Tony did it.”

“How?” Peggy looked to Potts, who glanced at Coulson, worriedly.

Coulson nodded encouragingly at her. “She’s good people. Trust her.” 

Potts slumped somewhat, but finally gave in. “When he was captured, Tony was hit with shrapnel from an improvised version of a Stark Industries bomb. It tore through his body armor and was boring through his chest. When his captors took him in, they patched him up but couldn’t get all the shrapnel out, so they figured out a way to put an electromagnet in his chest to prevent the shrapnel from burrowing in further and killing him.”

The horror of a weapon like that left Peggy feeling cold. “How did he survive at all?”

“Pure stubbornness,” she shot back in mild exasperation, which melted almost immediately into worry. “He shouldn’t have, frankly, but he did. To power the electromagnet, they hooked it up to a car battery, but that was cumbersome, so he created a miniature version of that thing to put into his chest to run it all.”

Peggy followed Potts’ pointing finger to the large building that housed Howard’s generator. “The Arc Reactor?”

“Tony built it from the weapons stores that they had there, small enough to slip it inside his chest. It was powerful enough he could use it to run the suit.”

“And ultimately escape.” The pieces started to fit together now, clicking so loud Peggy could practically hear them. “Stane can’t figure out how he did it, making a smaller version of the Arc Reactor.”

“No,” she shook her head, shining, strawberry blonde hair swinging. “I think he’s been searching Tony’s files, but it’s not there.”

Where it was, Potts wasn’t about to give away, though Peggy assumed it was likely all in his head. “And I am guessing Mr. Stark has the only working version of it on his person.”

She nodded, hesitantly. “The only one functioning, yes.”

Peggy cut her eyes immediately to Coulson. “Did you send anyone up to Stark’s home?”

“I have a unit en route, but Miss Potts already called Colonel Rhodes earlier. He should be there soon to warn him while SHIELD agents make their way there. In the meantime Miss Potts is going to get us access to the sub-basement under the Arc Reactor so we can see what Stane has been up to.”

The fact they didn’t know where Stane was bothered her. “Are you sure he isn’t down there?”

“No,” Coulson replied, frankly, nodding to the other agents. “That’s why I got backup.”

Peggy wasn’t certain they would be enough backup for what Stane had built. “You have point.”

Coulson was curt as he regarded the other agents. “Cargill, Hsu, I want you flanking. Rosby, take point with me. Lewis, Roberts and Specht, cover our back. Solarzano, you run comms and be our eyes and ears on this.”

All the agents nodded as hands went to weapons and ear pieces, checking that they were ready. Peggy felt a tap on her shoulder as the large, beefy hand of Solarzano handed her an earpiece with a dryly chiding look.

“You too, Director.” He tapped his own ear as she did as he said, slipping in an ear piece and clipping on a microphone onto her lapel.

“Miss Potts, if you will?”

Potts eyed them all nervously before nodding, turning towards the Arc Reactor building, her long legs leading the way, even in her ridiculous shoes. She pulled out a card that she used to key their way into the building, closed for the night, holding the door for Coulson to lead them in.

“It will be downstairs,” she explained, moving for a set by the door that led down underneath the massive reactor. Peggy glanced at it, still just as awed by it now as she was months ago when she first saw it. She carefully picked her way down the steps behind Coulson and Potts, the other agents following suit. They came down to a single, white painted door that opened into a sub-basement, a dark area with various different dim, dingy spaces, most of them either ignored or used for what seemed to be storage.

“It’s this one,” Potts indicated as they came to one door, painted with "16" in yellow and red. Peggy waited as she swiped her plastic card, noting the sound from up above and the relative abandonment of the area. Small wonder, then, that Stane had chosen it. She doubted anyone would ever think to come down here to do anything.

“My key is not working,” she heard Potts mutter, “it’s not opening the door.”

Coulson, prepared for this, gently moved her aside, placing some device on the magnetic lock of the door. 

“Oh wow! What’s that?” Potts marveled at the little device that lit up after Coulson pressed it. “It’s, like, a little device! It’s, like, a thing to pick a lock?”

“You might want to take a few steps back.”

Potts did just that, scuttling to stand beside Peggy as they both held hands over their ears. Peggy hadn’t known the device, but had guessed readily as it caused a minor explosion, blowing the lock and accessing the door. It opened as Coulson led the team inside, Potts sticking close to him as she led the way through it.

“Be careful, it’s dark,” she called, something like a kindergarten schoolmarm. Peggy supposed when one was the personal assistant to Tony Stark it likely came as second nature. The space was a clutter, the sub-basement where only pipes and wiring were, a perfect warren for activities you didn’t want to be found. Peggy kicked a toe against a box of spare parts and eyed a poorly lit cooling pipe above them.

“Over here!” One of the other agents spotted their quarry, half hidden in darkness. A suit of metal stood there, something like a robot, bulky and solid, more like a man shaped tank than anything else.

“Looks like you were right,” Coulson muttered to Potts, glancing back at Peggy.

Potts didn’t look as convinced. “I thought it would be bigger.”

Peggy wanted to comment that it looked plenty big enough to her, but held her tongue. The other agents moved towards it as Coulson pulled back. Potts wandered to the side as the SHIELD team moved to take custody of the item.

“Stane improved on Stark’s model from the desert.”

“Well, he only built it to get out. He’s been working on it since then.”

In the distance, something rumbled in the darkness, a creaking, groaning sound of metal and hydraulics. Peggy spun, hand immediately moving to the holster at her back as she pulled her weapon, Coulson and the other agents doing the same. For long moments, nothing happened, until Potts gave a startled, strangled gasp as the noise became a cacophony. Potts tore off towards them and away, as fast as her ridiculous shoes allowed, as something from a nightmare came straight at them.

“What the hell,” Coulson managed as the terror charged, a robot tearing through the pipes, wires, and metal as if they were little more than nuisances. Peggy didn’t bother to comment. She simply fired.

It did little good, in the end, as they barely phased the thing. Falling bits of girders and debris followed in its wake as explosions rocked the building, sending them all flying, like pinballs. Peggy only had time to blink, dazed on the concrete floor, before from up above, the metal sheeting of the air conditioning vent pulled away with a screech from the ceiling. It fell, fell...right to where she already lay.


	36. Chapter 36

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy saves Pepper's life.

“Carter,” Coulson bellowed somewhere above her. She lay in darkness on the concrete, bruised and battered, but alive.

“I’m here,” she returned, taking stock of what her situation was. Surrounded by darkness, she seemed to lay in a pocket of rubble, torn wires and toppled shelving, the air conditioning vent trapping her the most. Above she could hear the scurry of feet and squealing of protesting metal as Coulson began directing agents to remove giant pieces in order to get her out.

“What’s your status,” he called, his voice echoing through the metal.

She considered, stretching her legs in the cramped space, sitting up slowly to move her shoulders. “I seemed to be well enough. A bit bruised. How about up there?”

“Rosby got banged up good. He’ll need medical attention.”

A set of shelves above her shifted as Cargill and Hsu peeked down, torches in hand as she blinked up at them. With the obstruction shifted, Hsu reached a hand down to help pull her up out of the hole in the debris. The sub-basement room around them was in shambles. Peggy blinked as she counted the agents huddled around them. All seemed to be there and alive, though Rosby was indeed banged up, leaning heavily on two of the others. The space itself looked as if it had been hit by a tornado, tossed upside down and flung about like a bull in a china shop.

“Where is Stane,” Peggy managed as she picked her way through the debris to the others, sliding her weapon back into its holster.

“He went after Potts. We’ve not tracked him.”

“We need to get to her. He likely wants to use her as bait for Stark.”

“If we could get out, I’d agree with you, but looks like we are trapped.” Coulson flashed his light at the path they had just come out of, broken and covered thanks to Stane’s path of destruction.

“Coulson,” Lewis called, finger to his ear, listening. “Solarzano has reinforcements on the way. He also let us know another unknown entity has engaged with Stane. Looks like another flying robot.”

“Stark,” Coulson glanced at Peggy, who only belatedly realized she had yet to turn on her own communication device. She sheepishly did so, listening to the chatter on the other end. Not much of it made sense, but she could hear that there was some sort of battle happening on the freeway not far away.

“Maybe there is another way out of here.” Peggy turned on her own torch, shining the bright light into the darkness beyond. Outside of Stane’s path the rest of the area looked like little used cooling space for the Arc Reactor above. On the far wall, however, looked like a door to something. Catching Coulson’s eye, she moved towards it.

“A service door,” he asked, following as the other agents watched, hopeful.

“Looks like it.” The giant, metal door had no handle on the inside, which meant it had to open from the other. “Think one of your special toys could open it?”

“Maybe? Specht, you have that device on you?”

A tall, gangly agent nodded, digging in his coat pocket for a small, cylinder device, no bigger than the handle of a switchblade. “You’ll want to shield your eyes.”

Peggy did so as the other agent flicked it on, a beam of light flaring, bright as an arc welder. Specht pressed the flame into the metal of the door, cutting into it, a circle that glowed in bright, molten red from the heat, smoking as he worked. When he finished, an uneven circle of metal remained, easily punched out onto the other side of the door, clattering as it fell, revealing a light source on the other side.

Peggy blinked in mild amazement. “What is that?”

“It’s called a Mouse Hole,” Coulson explained. “Basically a pocket industrial laser.”

Specht grinned, holding up the now quiescent device. “A friend of my, Agent Fitz, he developed it while we were in training.”

“And it’s restricted to only high level agents,” Coulson reminded him with some asperity. Specht flushed and nodded, pocketing it again before reaching one of his long, thin arms through the now cooling metal, reaching up for a handle outside.

“Senior agents,” Peggy asked, with the tone that asked how Specht got it.

“I didn’t even rate one of those,” Coulson grumbled. “A senior agent and they didn’t give me one. Hill has one and she doesn’t even go in the field as often as I do.”

“And how did Specht manage?”

“The secret engineer club,” he muttered as the heavy, steel door opened with a creek, nearly toppling Specht as he clumsily tried to maneuver it with his arm through nearly to his shoulder. Coulson leapt forward to continue opening the heavy door as Peggy helped Spechtt detangle himself and stand up right.

On the radio, Solarzan’s voice sounded. “Stane is back on the roof with the unknown assailant. I’m not sure they won’t bring the whole place down.”

“Let’s get moving,” called Coulson to the others as he began waving them through the short hallway that led to another set of metal double doors.

“What about Potts,” Peggy spoke into the lapel, drawing Solarzano’s attention.

“She seemed all right. She’s back inside, though.”

“See if you can get her out.” Peggy had a feeling if Stane and Stark were up on the roof, one or the other of them was planning on using the reactor to cause some sort of destruction.

“Time for us to get out too, Director.” Coulson grabbed her elbow, propelling her along. Peggy bit back her disgruntlement but did as asked, hustling behind the other agents into a service bay area on the back side of the building. The rest made for the far side of the parking area, filled with a fleet of vans and trucks all emblazoned with the Stark Industries logo. On the other side was a swath of grass where they let Rosby settle, the rest looking to Coulson. He stopped in the middle of the parking lot, looking to the action above.

Peggy turned, seeing the horrific suit of Stane’s up there, clearly looking for something.

“We need to get back to the front.” Peggy tugged Coulson’s sleeve, dragging him along with her.

Coulson barely had a chance to call back to Cargill that he was in to see over the team before he took off, back towards the building and a small plaza that had a cut through to the front of the immense campus. Peggy’s steps pounded on the pavement as she made for it, up above the sounds of fire could be heard. She rounded the corner to the main, front area, Coulson hard on her heels, just as in the distance she could see the lights of emergency vehicles coming through the drive.

“Cavalry has arrived, at least,” Peggy gasped, looking towards the Arc Reactor building. Glass and rubble covered the square, as did a giant hole that seemed to be formed by something burrowing up from underneath the earth. Solarzano stood outside of the well lit doors. Inside, Potts was as the controls pressing buttons and staring up at the roof above. From up above, another volley of shots rang out, sending glass from the glass panels above raining down on the control panel and Potts standing below it.

Without a second thought, Peggy tore through the broken glass already scattered on the ground to get through to her, Coulson yelling Peggy's last name. Peggy ignored him as bullets and shattered window rained down, covering her own head as she made for cover in a doorway, looking for the means to get to the platform that controlled the reactor. A single set of stairs led up to where Potts crouched. She looked up, staring in fear as through the ceiling a figure in battered, red armor dangled dangerously over the reactor.

“Tony,” Potts screamed as Peggy could see the man holding on to a beam for dear life, glancing back down at her in terror.

Up above, Peggy could hear Stane’s voice, dark and amused. “How ironic, Tony! Trying to rid the world of weapons, you gave it its best one ever!”

“Pepper,” Stark bellowed, calling for his assistant down below.

“And now,” Stane shouted, winded and threatening. “I’m going to kill you with it.”

The entire building rumbled with the force of an explosion on its roof. Dust and glass particles flew as Peggy ducked and Potts shrieked. Peggy waited for it to settle before heading across the destruction to the stairs, hoping to grab Potts and make a run for the doors and safety.

“You ripped out my targeting system,” Stane admonished above, even as Stark continued to dangle, holding on for dear life. Potts had her eyes only for him and didn’t even noticed Peggy coming up to where she stood.

“Time to hit the button,” Stark called down to Potts.

She flailed an arm in mild confusion. “You told me not to.”

Stane was unconcerned with their spat. “Hold still, you little prick.”

Another rumble shook the building, nearly sending Peggy skittering over slippery shards.

“Just do it,” Stark screamed his command, desperate.

“You’ll die,” she wailed back.

Another shot managed to hit the girders, nearly breaking through and sending Stark tumbling to cling with one arm.

“Push it,” he roared down to Potts, who did as she was asked. She slammed the flat of her hand down on the controls, immediately starting a reaction in the Arc Reactor. Electricity crackled, bluish purple, sending sparks all around the ring shape. A corona of energy surrounded it as Peggy could clearly see the systems overloading. Potts let out a yelp as she stumbled down the steps, her shoes sticking and nearly sending her sprawling face first into the diamond-sharp shards below. Peggy reached out for her, grabbing her arm hard, righting her as best she could to get her down the stairs.

“Come on,” she yelled over the growing noise as Potts stopped to stare desperately at Stark up above.

“It will kill him!”

“We haven’t got time,” Peggy insisted, yanking her with her. The other woman barely kept up as they rushed out, even as the reactor spun and overloaded, building energy so bright it was nearly incandescent. They had yet to make it to the door when the reactor exploded its surfeit of electricity upwards, shooting it up through the building and into the air, like a lightning bolt in reverse.

Potts tried then, once again, to pull her arm away, as if she could do anything to help Stark now, but Peggy held on, refusing to let go. With a tug, she got Potts moving again, even as sparks flew around them, the light blinding as Peggy squeezed her eyes tightly shut, hoping to make her way blind. There was a boom, then silence. 

Peggy had rather hoped that would be the worst of it. But there came a sound of creaking metal, as from somewhere above, the of it tumbling down, banging loudly into metal and glass. Peggy glanced back to see the very large body of Stane and his machine fall through the roof and down towards the Arc Reactor itself, like a bullet straight into the delicate machinery. Realizing what would happen, she desperately hauled the more unstable Potts behind her, yanking her forward through the open doors. No sooner had they made their way across the threshold and out than the world exploded again, this time in golden fire, shaking the entire building and sending them flying to where Coulson and Solarzano waited. Coulson wrapped himself around Potts, hauling her to the ground protectively, while Solarzano did the same to Peggy, surprisingly agile for a man so large. The lot of them tumbled to the concrete, the wind knocked out of them with the force.

It took Peggy a long moment to get herself back together, blinking her suddenly light-blown eyes, trying to adjust. She raised herself up off of Solarzan’s bulky figure, checking him out. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” he grunted, gingerly blinking and wincing, fingers flying to the back of his head. He likely cracked it on the concrete. He pulled his hand away and there appeared to be no blood. He would would survive with little more than a nasty headache. Beside him, Pepper pulled up off of Coulson, who himself looked slightly battered, helping the other woman to sit up and gaze in fearful awe at the destruction around them.

“Tony,” Potts screamed, pushing herself up to rush back inside. 

Peggy snaked a hand to grab her. “Let the medical team go in.”

“He could be dead!”

She wasn’t wrong. “All the more reason for them to find him.”

Potts shook her head, tears streaming. “If he’s hurt, I need to find him.”

Peggy glanced to Coulson, who nodded. “You go with her. I’ll get the fire and medical inside.”

The Arc Reactor was a smoking ruins, fire burning in the main room. Potts rushed for that first, seemingly determined to run after Stark into the flames, but Peggy stopped her, pointing to the roof.

“He didn’t fall,” she explained, pointing back to the blaze. “Stane did, but Stark didn’t, else we wouldn’t have gotten out.”

Potts, dazed and tear stained, took long moments to process that. “Then...then he may be on the roof!”

Before Peggy could reason through it, Potts was to the stairs they had taken earlier, going up instead of down, pounding her way up in her dainty shoes. Peggy followed, breathless as they finally made their way to the roof above. Potts busted through the door leading out, looking towards the blown out glass roof and to a particular figure huddled on the side, laying on his back, unmoving.

“Tony,” she cried, rushing forward as Pepper followed, pulling at her lapel.

“We found Stark on the roof, over.”

“Roger that,” Solarzano below replied. “What’s his status?”

“Injured at best. Send a medical team up.”

“Sending a medical team up now.”

Potts was bent over Stark, smoothing back his dark hair and frantically tapping at the dimly lit panel in his chest. “It’s flickering. I...I don’t know what to do if it’s flickering.”

Peggy quietly blinked in awe at the entire sight before her. Tony Stark lay in a suit of red armor trimmed in gold, the blue light dancing like a guttering candle. It was more like something out of a comic book or fantastic story, but this was real, and Howard’s son had created it. Not only that, it had saved his life. Shaking herself, she gently pushed Potts aside to lean over Stark, reaching for his throat where it was nearly covered by the armor itself. While his skin was clammy, his heartbeat could still be felt, strong if rapid. Peggy glanced at the shuddering light in his chest.

“If that stops, will it kill him?”

Potts pressed her lips together hard, eyes welling, but voice calm as she held herself together. “Um...no, not immediately, but he will go into cardiac arrest soon. Something to do with the electromagnetic and the impulses controlling his heartbeat and the shrapnel. I’m not sure, I just know it has something to do with pacemakers.”

Peggy got enough of the gist to know that he would need help sooner rather than later. “Right, we may have to cut him out of this.”

Potts understood, but grimaced all the same. “He’s not going to like that.”

“Well if he lives, he can register a formal complaint with SHIELD, care of Margaret Carter.”

“I wouldn’t past him,” Potts teased, wettly, as from up the stairs a medical team raced over. Even they stopped, staring at Stark in his suit, blinking in mild amazement at what they saw.

“Jesus, how do we get it off,” one of them muttered, bending immediately to tend to Stark.

Peggy thought of Agent Specht and his convenient little device. “Agent Solarzano, do you copy? Could you send Agent Specht and his Mouse Hole up to the roof. I’m afraid we’ll need to get Stark out of his suit and it will take a bit of work.”

“Mouse Hole,” Potts asked with no small amount of worry.

“I’m afraid Mr. Stark is most certainly not going to be happy with us,” Peggy muttered, as the medical team tried to work around his suit, marveling at the circle of blue, weak light. “But he’ll live, so I imagine he’ll get over it.”

Potts only quietly nodded, filled with worry as she turned, bending to look down into reactor below. The fire was being put out, fumes and acrid, black smoke poured out, smelling of burnt and charred plastic, causing her to cough as she squinted below. Peggy joined her, more to ensure the woman didn’t topple down herself than to see the ruins below her.

“Do you think…” Potts faltered where she began. “Do you suppose he’s…”

“Dead?” Peggy nodded, unable to see Stane in the ruin. “Most likely. For what it’s worthy, I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” Potts muttered, low and angry, her jaw fixed as she blinked below. “We thought he was family. He was a monster.”

Peggy couldn't help but feel sorry for her and for Tony in that moment. The full weight of the betrayal had to be devastating. She knew that sort of feeling well, the realization that someone you knew and trusted was not who you thought they were. All she could do was place a hand on Potts’ shoulder, comforting. “I understand, more than you realize. But Tony is alive. He didn’t succeed.”

“Thank God for that,” Potts breathed as she turned back to where the team worked. Specht had made his way up with his Mouse Hole and they were using it to strategically remove Stark’s armor just to get at him inside. “I better go help just so they know how to get him out.”

Peggy nodded, watching as they gently and carefully removed each piece, thinking with no small amount of fond, dry humor that it shouldn’t surprise her that Howard’s son would cause this amount of trouble with one of his inventions.


	37. Chapter 37

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy makes a bet with Coulson

As it turned out, Stark was less upset about the ruining of his armor than he was about the SHIELD doctor who insisted he stay overnight for observation.

“He doesn’t like hospitals,” Potts had explained as she submitted to being looked over by the SHIELD medical staff for small scratches, all with the sort of grace her employer had not shown.

“He screamed about refusing to be used as a lab monkey as he went,” Peggy replied, her arched eyebrow somewhat marred by the bandage covering a shallow but bloody scratch there.

“He might have overreacted,” Potts conceded with no small amount of exhaustion. “Honestly, Rhodey could barely get him to agree to getting checked out after Afghanistan.

Peggy could only roll her eyes, thoroughly unimpressed by Stark’s insistence that he was fine. “What about the reactor in his chest?”

Potts paled slightly as she twisted her fingers in her lap, clearly uncomfortable. “I think he’s asked if the agents won’t get the one in Obadiah’s suit for him. That was the one he built when he got back, I guess Obi stole it.”

“I am sure arrangements can be made, especially as it keeps him alive.”

“Thank you,” Potts murmured, gratefully, glancing to the staff member who finally cleared her for little more than a nasty scratch on the back of her hand. She hopped off the table, unsure of what to do. “I should, maybe, go in and look after him. He’s going to be hell on the nurses if I don’t.”

“Of course,” Peggy assured her, realizing the woman more than anything just wanted to get back to Stark and assure herself with her own eyes that he was fine. She watched her walk down the hall to where they took Stark, considering both Pepper Potts and the entire long night quietly.

“She all right?” Coulson wandered up beside Peggy, watching Potts as well with speculative worry.

“Seems to be. She’s more worried about Stark.”

“Not surprised. I wonder if she realizes just how crazy she is for him.”

“Mmm, she’s probably about as oblivious as he is.”

That took Coulson by surprise. “You think Stark is in love with her?”

“Stranger things have happened. After all, his father fell in love with his mother.”

“Fair,” Coulson admitted, sipping from a styrofoam cup of wht Peggy presumed was coffee. “Just Stark’s always been the love ‘em and leave ‘em kind.”

“Any man can change,” Peggy murmured, thinking of all the reports and articles Cassandra had poured through, of the childish, playboy genius who had vented his angst and ennui through various acts of public drunkenness and excess, delighting in his wealth and high flying lifestyle, living like he was king of the world. The man she saw tonight, holding on for dear life, roaring at Potts to overload the reactor, even if it almost certainly meant his own death, that was a very different Tony Stark. Who he was before he went into the cave was not the man he was now. There was something rather Platonic about that, this evolution. Perhaps Tony Stark was finally evolving to become his real, truest self.

“I think Howard would be proud of him,” Peggy quietly stated, glancing at Coulson. “I wish he could see him.”

“Me too,” Coulson admitted. “But he’s still kind of a dick, in my opinion.”

Whether it was the vulgarity being uttered by Coulson of all people or the lateness of the hour, Peggy could help the hysterical peel of laughter that broke out of her, burbling forth much to Coulson’s quiet bemusement. She wished she could explain it, but she couldn’t. She giggled and snickered till tears crept down her face and Coulson mildly suggested that they get back to their hotel and get some rest.

It was far too late before they both crawled back, exhausted. Peggy didn’t even recall removing her now soiled clothes or climbing into the soft embrace of her rather fine bed. She didn’t really move again until her dratted phone went off once more, buzzing loud enough to pull her from the haze of sleep.

“Carter,” she grunted, answering the phone blind to who it was on the other end.

“Hate to wake you, but you’ll want to be up.” Coulson sounded bright-eyed and chipper and Peggy hated him violently in that moment. “The media is all over the Stark story.”

Peggy groaned, loudly. “Right, I’m up. I’ll be downstairs in half-an-hour.”

How she managed to be showered, dressed, and her ever presentable self, she didn’t know. While she still indulged in the pin-curl look some days, today was the sleek layers that Sharon had convinced her to get, and she was grateful for that, because drying and brushing were all she could manage. Decidedly less shabby in her suit, she met Coulson in the lobby where he held out a cup of straight black coffee to her. “Sorry about this, Director.”

“Can’t be helped, I suppose.” She stifled a yawn, sipping from the paper cup and leaving behind a crimson stain. “They were bound to find out. It’s been so long since they have seen anything of Stark, they are like lions eyeing Daniel.”

“Stark is holding a press conference to try and head it off. We’ve been working with SI’s PR team and Colonel Rhodes to help formulate an explanation.”

“What have you got?” Outside the hotel, Solarzano and his large, black SUV waited. He held the door open for Peggy, offering a hand so she could climb in with her coffee in her grip, a thoughtful gesture she appreciated.

Coulson clambered in beside her before continuing. “Everyone is already assuming it is some special, secret project that Stark and the Army are creating, so Rhodes is going to diffuse that situation first. Then Stark will make a statement to the effect that there was a prototype of robotic technology that failed, causing damage to the Arc Reactor. As for Stark’s armor, we are spreading the rumor it is part of his security team and that he was tasked with trying to bring the situation under control.”

Peggy thought the story sounded weak at best. “What about Stane?”

“The story being put around is that Stane is on an extended trip and can’t be reached for comment. Stark on the other hand was on his private yacht in Catalina last night. We’ve whipped up some witness affidavits and photos to spread about that show the vessel in Avalon harbor, clearing him from any knowledge or involvement in the incident.”

Peggy still didn’t like it. “So we are just going to...make a wholecloth story and hope it sticks?”

“We are spies, Director, it’s what we do.”

“Carter,” she corrected him, somewhat grumpily, pulling from her coffee. “What does Stark have to say about this?”

Here Coulson faltered. “Haven’t told him yet.”

Peggy figured as much. This was the flimsy sort of story that wouldn’t hold a ton of water should someone really shine a true light on it, but in fairness, the truth was far too outlandish to be believed. “I suppose we’ll have to hope he can sell this.”

“Tony Stark, the most charismatic billionaire in America? If he can’t sell this, I don’t know who can.”

Peggy shrugged, feeling impish in her grumpy state. “Twenty dollars says he will muck it up.”

Coulson’s eyes lit up at the challenge. “You think because Barton got me with that karaoke suckers bet that I would agree to throw money away like that?”

“You are the one sounding so confident, put your money where your mouth is.”

Solarzano in the seat ahead of her whistled, glancing back at them in the rearview mirror with undisguised delight.

Coulson chewed his tongue, torn between amusement and annoyance. “Fine, but I stand by what I said.”

“I like a man of conviction,” Peggy laughed, saluting him with her beverage. Coulson grimaced, looking as if he sorely regretted making that bet.

They made it to the Stark Industries campus in a relatively timely fashion despite the traffic. Solarzano flashed his badge at the gate, which was even more heavily protected than before, pulling in to the drive. In the full light of day Peggy could see the abject destruction of the previous night; the blown out windows, the piles of swept up glass, the giant hole in the middle of the pavement roped off with yellow tape tied to orange cones. Bits of the building roofline had been blown off, likely by Stane as he attempted to fire missiles at Tony, with concrete chunks littering the ground.

“They did a number on this place,” Solarzano observed as he pulled round to where the media gathered in the same building they had at Stark’s return months ago. Security was much thicker today, made up of a combination of LAPD and SHIELD agents as well as the odd, slightly stunned Stark Industries employee. Solarzano pulled up to the curb, parking to let them out.

Coulson had slipped his sunglasses on, pulling on his stoic look he used when he was in his agent mode. Peggy hardly felt it necessary, but still didn’t look at the press as she marched inside, blinking as they got into the main room. This time it was filled with chairs for reporters to actually sit in and they all murmured together, chatting over coffee and baked goods, bored as they waited for the main event to get into the room.

“Director Carter, Agent Coulson,” a smiling young woman, likely a Stark employee, greeted them. “Miss Potts asked me to look for you. Come this way to the green room, Mr. Stark is waiting.”

“Thank you,” Peggy murmured, following the woman down a hallway to rooms blocked off by extra security. She led them both past the guards and into the space crowded with people, including a clique of what looked like SHIELD agents conferring with Stark’s PR, Colonel Rhodes in his dress uniform, and the man Peggy had recognized before as Hogan, Stark’s driver, someone she had yet to technically meet.

“Director!” Rhodes grinned happily at the sight of her. “Agent Coulson, it’s a pleasure to see the both of you again.”

“We couldn’t miss this,” Coulson quipped, dryly. “We were happy to help and be there.”

“I’m damn glad you were. Tony might have ended up dead if not for you.” Rhodes glanced back to the room she was certain Stark was in. “I found him after Stane got there and had stolen his Arc Reactor. He’d crawled down to his lab, literally, to get the old one he’d made in that cave.”

“He’s nothing if not a survivor,” Hogan gravely chimed in. He was a tall man, broad shouldered and beefy, like Solarzano, with a jaw of granite and an accent not totally unlike the one Steve and Bucky both had, slightly more nasal than Howard’s, which she guessed pinned him as a New Yorker, but from Brooklyn or Queens. He looked shaken indeed as he nodded at Rhodes with the sort of gravity one expected at a funeral. “You know, for all of his bullshit, Tony is a fighter, and he’s too damn smart to go down.”

“Yeah, well he nearly did last night.” Rhodes was not as reverential about it at all. “Obadiah...God that floors me. Tony’s gutted. He won’t say it, but he is.”

“In a million years, I wouldn’t have seen it coming,” Hogan echoed, scowling and solemn. “Tony thought of him as family. He takes that seriously.”

Coulson interjected himself with careful understanding. “There was no way you could have known. We believe he’d been working behind the scenes in Stark Industries for decades, perhaps since Howard Stark brought him on.”

“Still,” Hogan insisted, grimly. “How could anyone miss it for this long?”

“People see what they want to see,” Peggy said, cutting to the heart of the matter. It was a truth she knew and understood intimately well. It had served her in her own investigations over the years. It surprised her little that Stane had employed the same tactic. “No one wanted to see that the man who Howard Stark trusted with his son and his company was anything other than a good, decent man, so they didn’t. That was all the cover he needed.”

It was food for thought for Hogan, who Peggy understood was Stark’s bodyguard. Perhaps this would make him more cautious in the future. Beside him, Rhodes roused, looking at his watch ruefully. “Well, I’m the first one up in this circus. Again, I can’t thank you all enough for what you’ve done to help us out.”

“A pleasure, Colonel,” Peggy assured him, as he moved to the cluster of people for final notes before he left to take the podium. Peggy looked to Hogan. “Is Mr. Stark inside. We hoped to speak with him.”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” His ruddy cheeks flushed as he led the way in his dark suit, a looming shadow. He knocked on the wood-panelled double doors before opening them, peeking a head inside.

“I got SHIELD here, boss, they’d like to chat with you.”

“I haven’t shaken those guys yet?” Stark wasn’t even bothering to hide his irritation. Peggy found herself grinning at that, a ghost of a memory of another time rising to the fore.

“Don’t be rude,” Potts admonished him, coming to the door to look around Hogan’s broad shoulder. “Agent Coulson, Director Carter, it’s so lovely to see you!”

For the other woman’s part, Peggy could tell that her response at least was genuine. Their efforts last night had strangely bonded them, and she opened the door wider to let them into Stark’s inner sanctum. His private rooms were clearly a staging area, looking like more conference room than anything else. A television was set up to show the live feed from the local news of the press conference, while Stark, battered and bruised but none the worse for wear, sat in a folding director’s chair, sipping from a cup of coffee and skimming a newspaper, one with a black-and-white photo of what Peggy presumed was his suit of armor, complete with helmet. The visage was vaguely robotic, and while not as terrifying as Stane’s, it was still formidable. He’d clearly evolved it a great deal in the months since his return.

He didn’t even bother to look up at either of them as he read his paper, much to Potts’ chagrin. “The paper overblows everything. They said we backed up traffic for miles along the 405 Freeway.”

“You did back up traffic for miles, and the same up and down La Cienega, where they had to put out a burning bus.”

“That was not on me,” he protested, mildly as Potts dug through what appeared to be a case for makeup, pulling out a compact. “I was trying to mitigate losses.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean traffic wasn’t backed up over it.”

“It’s LA, traffic is backed up on any day that ends in Y.” He finally folded down his paper enough to look at Peggy and Coulson. “So, I guess I have to now be debriefed by the Spooks, is that what this is?”

“Spooks would be CIA, Mr. Stark, we are much more terrifying than that,” Coulson deadpanned in his polite manner. “And if you’d spoken to us in the first place, perhaps a lot of this could have been avoided.”

“Mmm, yeah, or SHIELD could have just arrested him when they found out he had something to do with it.” Despite his lackadaisical expression, there was heat in his words, however misplaced.

“Unfortunately, Mr. Stark, SHIELD is an international agency with a UN charter, not a United States federal one.” Peggy cut in smoothly, knowing the intricacies of this far too well from her experience forming the dratted charter in the first place. “We would need evidence with which to go to a judge to execute a warrant and without one of those we can’t just barging into a private citizen's house and drag him out of it. Besides, we couldn’t trust that you wouldn’t have come to his defense with a bevvy of highly paid lawyers and undermined any investigation we did. We had to hope we could present the evidence to you and work in concert to take steps together. But, you are a hard man to get a hold of.”

Stark eyed her, realizing she was right and that he had been an architect of his own downfall in this. It took a long moment before he nodded, shrugging and returning to his paper. “Fair, I suppose.”

Potts rolled her eyes and shot Peggy an apologetic look as at the door, a younger SHIELD agent called for Coulson. He held up a hand to acknowledge them before making his excuses. “Apologies, let me confer with the team. They are finishing up final notes now.”

Peggy watched him go, glancing at the screen where Colonel Rhodes was already at the podium, speaking to the gathered reporters. In his formal, perfunctory tones he recited the official military line on the incident, giving a no-nonsense description that should at least mollify the press. For his part, Stark paid little attention, keeping up a running chatter as Potts began to touch up his man bruises with foundation and powder, covering them up so as not to make them visible for the cameras.

“Iron Man, that’s kind of catchy! It’s got a nice ring to it,” he observed as Potts leaned in to carefully remove a tiny bandage that lay across the bridge of his nose, a leftover from the night before. “Although it’s not technically accurate, you see, it’s a gold-titanium alloy.”

He winced as Potts pulled the adhesive strip off with an audible, peeling sound.

“But, it’s kind of evocative imagery anyway.” he finished as she threw the bandage away, just as Coulson returned with a pair of notecards completed from the SHIELD and SI PR teams.

“Here is your alibi,” Coulson gave by way of explanation, no nonsense as he held them under Stark’s bruised nose. 

“Okay,” Stark accepted them as Potts set on him with her makeup and sponge, trying to cover the worst of the damage of the night before.

Coulson quickly filled in the details. “You were out on your yacht.”

“Yeah,” Stark listened, tossing his paper aside.

“We have port papers that put you in Avalon all night as well as sworn statements from 50 of your guests.”

“I was thinking that maybe we could just say that it was just Pepper and me, you know...alone, on the yacht.”

His obvious effort at flirting and humor only earned a dry look from his assistant, who merely reached for the bandage across his right eyebrow and pulled it ruthlessly, likely taking hair with it. It hurt, but he turned to grin up at her, unashamed. Her responding glare only delighted him more.

“That’s the story,” Coulson reaffirmed.

“All right,” Stark agreed, studying the card.

“Just read it word-for-word.”

He frowned as he flipped through them, dark eyes scanning the blue cards quickly. “There is nothing about Stane.”

“That’s being handled,” Coulson reassured him bluntly. “He’s on vacation. Small aircraft have such a poor safety record.”

Peggy knew the double meaning in his words and it admittedly left her feeling slightly chilled he could deliver such news so coldly. For all of his heart, Coulson could have a ruthless streak she observed, as Stark’s lightening quick mind processed that.

“Yeah, but what about the whole cover story that he’s my bodyguard? He’s my...bodyguard...I mean, is that...it’s kind of flimsy, don’t you think?”

Peggy knew he’d see through it. She tried not to shoot Coulson a triumphant look, even as he met Stark’s doubt with quiet reassurance. “It’s not my first rodeo, Mr. Stark. Just stick to the official statement and soon all of this will be behind you.”

Stark didn’t like it, but he did at least thoughtfully look down at his notes as Coulson eyed the screen with Rhodes at the podium. “You’ve got 90 seconds.”

He turned to leave as Potts looked around in mild panic at the screen. Peggy made to follow him, but Potts turned back around, calling for Coulson, pulling him aside for a moment, leaving Peggy with Stark. For his part, he was busy with the cards and paid little attention to her standing there. For a long moment she watched him, his brow furrowed as he reviewed his lines. Howard used to do the same thing when studying his notes, committing things to memory. Still, in a million years she couldn’t have imagined Howard doing what his son did the night before, sacrificing himself to keep a greater evil from taking control of his family’s company and causing even greater death and destruction than it already had. Peggy doubted Howard would have had the fortitude to stop any of it in the first place, let alone take a stand on principle and fight for it the way Tony had.

“You know,” Stark finally said, not even looking up at her. “I have to admit you intrigue me...Director Carter, is it?”

She was surprised he remembered her name at all. Perhaps he’d heard Potts calling her that. “Yes.”

He glanced up, looking her over briefly before nodding to himself. “You aren’t who I would expect. I mean, Coulson over there, he’s an agency man, but you are something different and I can’t put my finger on what it is.”

She shrugged, unsure as to what he was getting at. “I’ve been with SHIELD for a long time. I don’t know if there is anything inherently different about me.”

“No?” He didn’t sound so sure. “For what it is worth, in case I don’t see you again, and I doubt I ever will, let me take the opportunity to say...thank you, for what you did to get me out of there. I mean, well I got me out of there, but for helping people find me once I did it. You didn’t need to and I can at least show my gratitude when it is called for...which admittedly isn’t often, but as vain as I am I’m not a complete jerk about it.”

Peggy thankfully could speak Stark and knew this was his fumbling way of showing appreciation. “I did need to, Mr. Stark...for an old friend. It was my pleasure to do it.”

She shouldn’t have been surprised his quicksilver mind latched on to that. “An old friend?”

As much as she wanted to say more, she knew it was unwise to do so. “He once spent a great deal of time and effort looking for someone I loved and cared for. He never found him. The least I could do in return is find the one thing he cherished above anything else. I’m glad you are home safe.”

Her words only seemed to mystify him more as she turned on her heel, fearing she’d already given too much away. Potts had finished with Coulson and smoothing down her simple, black dress went over to grab Stark’s suit jacket as Peggy made to follow Coulson out of the room and back out into the hall where the media gathered.

“Stark okay with his lines,” Coulson inquired.”

“I believe so,” Peggy replied, glancing back at him as Potts adjusted Stark's pocket handkerchief. The room full of agents and PR had wandered out already, leaving them to find their places by themselves.

“Well, if he does what we ask him to, the whole thing with this Iron Man business will be shut down, the media will move on to something else, and he will now owe SHIELD one for all of our assistance. That is a perfect opportunity to approach him with the Avengers Initiative.”

He wasn’t wrong, and Peggy knew that was what Coulson was trying to set up, but she had a feeling that none of this was going to run anywhere nearly as perfectly as Coulson was envisioning it. “I don’t know if that is going to work as smoothly as you would like.”

“I mean, perhaps not, Stark is a narcissist, but clearly last night showed he has a heroic and honorable side to him, even if it’s deep down. If we speak to that, he will clearly come around.”

“Oh, I don’t deny he has a honorable streak in him, but I also believe he’s worked for a long time by himself doing things exactly how he wants. The problem with geniuses and great mean is that they think too big for other normal people to keep up, and he has little patience with anyone who can’t.”

“Which is why you need Steve Rogers. He could keep up.”

“Mmmm,” Peggy hummed, ignoring the leap of bittersweet hope and longing that came with the mention of Steve’s name. “Steve can keep up, but he’s not as jaded as Tony clearly already is. They can balance one another out, but getting them to that point will be difficult. It’s a bit like yoking two stubborn oxes together.”

“That’s why we have you.” Coulson eyed her with supreme confidence, an assured smile on his face. “I can’t think of a person who could manage either of them better. You’ve got this, Peggy. When you have them both, you’ll see.”

His utter faith in her nearly floored Peggy. She flushed, shocked to silence at his conviction. When she did find words, she could only keep it simple. “Thank you, Phil.”

“I don’t say that lightly.” He motioned to a spot along the wall, about where they stood the last time they were in this hall months ago. Not long after they settled, Stark himself walked out, his pale green silk tie straightened and his collar buttoned, looking smooth and put together. Behind the podium, Rhodes was finishing his statement and making an introduction for Stark.

“And now Mr. Stark has prepared a statement,” Rhodes read, glancing to where Tony sauntered around the far edge of the room, making his way to the stage. “He will not be taking any questions.”

Peggy eyed Coulson at that pronouncement. He shrugged. “We thought it would be easier if he didn’t. Keeps our story straight.”

Oh that was not going to work, Peggy thought. Trying to muzzle a Stark when there were microphones and cameras around was next to impossible.

Tony made his way to where Rhodes stood, confident, but subdued in a way that didn’t suit him. Still, he took to the podium as if he owned it, quietly reading the room. “Uh..it’s been a while since I was in front of you, I figured I would stick to the cards this time.”

A general rumble of laughter rippled through the room of reports as cameras flashed and whirled. Tony found his cards, glancing over them once more briefly, clearing his throat before he began. “There has been speculation that I was involved in the events that happened on the freeway and the rooftop…” 

He paused to scratch nervously at his goatee, leaving an opening for a reporter in the very front row, a blonde woman, to hold her hand up rather pointedly, purposely grabbing for Stark's attention despite Rhodes’ warning. Without a buy-your-leave, she let her question pour out, catching Tony somewhat by surprise.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark, do you honestly expect us to believe that that was a bodyguard in a suit,” she sneered, dubious as she lowered her arm. “That conveniently appeared despite the fact that…”

She was egging him, Peggy noted, as Tony met the reporter with a smirking frown. “I know that it’s confusing...it is one thing to question the official story and another thing entirely to make wild accusations or to insinuate that I’m a superhero.”

Coulson beside Peggy stilled, the color draining from his face. “What is he doing?”

Peggy wasn’t sure. Nothing about that reporter’s question insinuated that, not in anything she said, and Peggy suspected he knew that. “I warned you.”

“I never said you were a superhero,” the reporter shot back, unphased by Stark or his hubris.

“You didn’t,” he asked, fumbling for words.

“Hun-uh” she vocalized, affirming her statement, which only caused him to fumble more.

“Well good, because that would be outlandish and fantastic.” He returned to his cards, but only briefly before bursting out again. “I’m just not the hero type, cleary, with this laundry list of character defects, all the mistakes I’ve made, largely public.”

As he dug himself in deeper, Rhodes leaned in, trying desperately to right the ship again, even as Stark flailed. Their brief conversation seemed to center him again as he took a deep breath, holding up his cards once more. He scanned the room, the words, so carefully prepared for him not coming.”

“Why isn’t he just reading the card,” Coulson whispered, frantically.

Peggy knew why. It was a lie, and unlike his father, Tony Stark was not precisely a fan of lying. He’d never had to grow up with them like Howard had just to survive. Consequently, he struggled now. From what little she knew of Tony Stark, his lived his life out there, loud and big, and to hide who he was just wasn’t something he did. She knew what he was going to do even before he did it.

“The truth is,” he began, pausing again, eyes flickering upwards. For the briefest of moments his eyes landed on Peggy, something gleeful lurking, turning into the hint of a smirk. “The truth is...I am Iron Man.”

The entire room exploded into pandemonium. Reporters leaped from their chairs, rushing the stage. Rhodes turned to stare at him as if he’d lost his mind. Beside her, Coulson’s jaw dropped, one of the few times she had ever seen the man so gobsmacked. He worked it up and down, like a fish, before turning to Peggy, stunned. 

“That...that wasn’t what he was supposed to say!”

“No,” Peggy agreed, both amused and fatalistic in equal measure. “No, that wasn’t.”

Coulson’s jaw snapped shut, anger turning his expression hard. “We need to fix this.”

Peggy sighed. She knew this would be hard for Coulson to hear, but hear it he must. “No, you really don’t.”

“But...this was supposed to be secret.”

“I learned long ago that trying to get a Stark to keep a secret is like trying to ask the tides to change or the sun not to rise. It is what it is, Coulson. Best we accept that and move on. Time for Plan B.”

“Which is?”

“Let him have his moment in the sun and ask him plainly to be an Avenger, none of this pussyfooting around and covering things up for him to make him feel obligated to do it. He’s determined to be his own man, free from SHIELD’s control, that's what this little stunt is all about. If that is the case, we will ask him nicely to play ball.”

“And if he says no?”

“You've got to ask him the right way. Appeal to his ego and his sense of honor and duty. He will come along.”

Coulson didn't look as if he was so sure that would work as much as Peggy thought it would.

“Besides,” she smiled, taking his arm and tugging him away from the bedlam of the press conference. “You owe me $20 now, so pay up.”

Coulson sighed, reaching into his pocket for his wallet. It was slim and compact, just the size for a special agent to carry discreetly. He pulled out a single, crip bill and handed it over to her. She took it gratefully, slipping it inside her purse.

“You knew he wasn’t going to play ball.”

“I suspected. He is too smart for the sort of espionage games we play. Starks are never strategic or tactical, it’s not their forte, but they can cut through bullshit faster than anyone I’ve seen, and I knew that this would rankle with him. So no, I’m not surprised, but I must admit he did it with flair.”

“Flair is a word for it,” Coulson complained, loudly. “I call it being an asshole.”

“Ahhh, well, you’ll find with Starks those two are often the same thing,” Peggy laughed as they went to meet with Solarzano and the car.


	38. Chapter 38

It was a late flight that night from Los Angeles via a SHIELD quinjet. Peggy couldn’t say she was sad to leave. As lovely as the city was, it wasn’t New York...it wasn’t home. So it was that she parted ways with Coulson, who was himself headed back to his mysterious business in New Mexico.

“You still won’t tell me what it is you are up to there,” she asked as they stood outside of the quinjet as it prepared for its takeover procedures.

“I think you know me better than that,” Coulson teased. “So what comes next for you and the Avengers Initiative.”

“Well, I suppose I will figure that out more with Agent Kam when I get back. Obviously, the world now knows about Tony Stark. We will have to plan a new course of action with him to bring him on board and see who will fit alongside him and Steve.” That would take more than a bit of guesswork in terms of personalities and abilities, considering how different they both were. Cassandra had a unique and keen insight into other people, but even she would have her work cut out for her.

“You think he will agree?”

“Not sure,” Peggy admitted. “As displayed today, Tony Stark is a man who follows his own rules, but with the right inducement he might be a team player. We just have to find what that is.”

Coulson didn’t look as if he believed that to be possible. “Good luck with that, Director. I’m sure we will be working together again in the future, so until then I will only say goodbye for now.”

Peggy held out her hand for him to shake firmly, knowing they would more than likely be working together again sooner rather than later. “I look forward to it, Agent Coulson.”

As she loaded herself into the quinjet she considered the man Fury called his left eye on the ground. Coulson was a good man, perhaps a bit too rules bound, but on the whole an honest and decent one. She could see why Fury relied so much on him, especially as a balance to the more pragmatic and ruthless Hill. Coulson had heart and Peggy found herself not only liking him, but appreciating his work and friendship.

It was strange, she ruminated as the quinjet lifted off, the glitter of Los Angeles spread out like a million stars below them. Months ago she left a world she had been comfortable with, a life she had built up for herself in the years after the war and had forsaken it all to come into this strange different, confusing, fast paced world of 2010. She hadn’t meant to land here, had come there by accident, and yet here she was in a new life, building the team this universe needed to stop some cosmic threat she only knew was coming, but had little to no understanding of. She hoped that somewhere between convincing Stark to sign on and finding and reviving Steve she would find some sort of direction in all of this.

As fast as the quinjet was it was ridiculously late by the time Peggy arrived in New York. Her short ride home from headquarters saved her the trouble of finding a cab and she nearly stumbled into the SHIELD owned building, barely swiping her badge in the appropriate places to get her into the door. She yawned loudly, jaw cracking as she only gave a weary wave to the overnight security, a young up-and-coming agent she had seen a time or two named Perez, a boy who was only getting his start in the academy after finishing his college work at CUNY.

“Director Carter,” he greeted, rummaging at the front desk where he sat. “Didn’t expect you in so late.”

“Mmmm, late flight from Los Angeles, the last one.” She kept her steps turned towards the lifts...elevators...whatever she wanted to call them at 3 in the morning. “Good night!”

“Wait up, before you go!” He hustled from around the desk, a postal box in his hands. “This came in your mail while you were gone but we held on to it since you were out of town.”

Peggy frowned, glancing at her name on the top of the shipping label but stopping to frown at the other name at the top - H. Carter, with a Virginia address.

“Thank you,” she managed a wobbly smile, exhaustion and confusion pulling at her. “I’ll take it on up. Are you doing all right tonight?”

“Of course, Director!” He seemed more delighted he could speak with her. “Anything you need, just let me know!”

“Thank you and good night, again.” This time she firmly marched herself to the lifts and punched the one she knew would lead to her flat far above, the palatial place that she had hardly wanted when she got here, but now felt more and more like home. She shuffled to the door, ran her badge over the lock and opened it, pausing long enough to kick off her shoes and set down her bag and purse, sighing in contentment as the automation in the house kicked in, turning on lights so she wouldn’t stumble. She wandered, yawning, into her kitchen, placing the package on the granite covered island, studying the label briefly. It was printed, not handwritten, but she recognized the address as the one she and Sharon had visited last summer. Despite her numerous conversations with Sharon and the rest of her family, her nephew, Harry, had not made any effort to engage with Peggy outside of polite pleasantries. What could he possibly be sending her after months of silence?

She fished out a pair of scissors out of a drawer, opening them wide to cut open the tape sealing the box. As she pulled back the flaps, inside there was a smaller box and an envelope, handwritten with her name in tidy, block letters. Curious, she opened the seal, slipping out a piece of notepaper with Harry’s name and title and the seal of American University at the top. Underneath it in his firm writing was a brief note.

_Peggy-_

_I won’t lie to you how strange this all is for me, and I am sure it is just as strange for you. I hope that you are settling in this strange place and time well, despite the absurdity of modern living sometimes. I find that even I become overwhelmed by it, I can only imagine how you must feel._

_Sharon mentioned once that there was an item you had not brought with you, one you rather wished you’d remembered to bring. As it happens, many of your personal effects were passed on to Dad after your disappearance. Most have been in storage, moved from one house to the other, and while a few items have been lost over the years, this one made it through. Cynthia found a place that restored it for you and I hope you find the work satisfactory._

_With that in mind, I have been told by my children, particularly my eldest daughter, and in no uncertain terms that I’ve been a horse’s ass this entire time regarding you. I won’t pretend I haven’t, all of this is complicated at best, and I’m sure you feel the same. All I can say is that perhaps I can try to be better and that perhaps we can reconnect as family. I think somewhere Dad, wherever he is, would like that. I hope you consider that as Thanksgiving comes around. You have family and we would love to have you._

_I hope this letter finds you well._

_Sincerely-_

_Harrison Carter_

Peggy blinked, stunned, her eyes watering as she read through the letter again, Harry’s words shocking her in their stilted sincerity. Perhaps he had flown off the handle, but, it was no worse than anything she had ever done, including to his own father. Something inside of her chest, a tightness she hadn’t known was there, eased. She wishes it wasn’t so late and that she could call Sharon to discuss it, but she doubted her niece would appreciate it. Instead she set the note aside, a creep of hope welling up that perhaps, maybe, she could rebuild the relationship with her elder brother’s son.

Instead she turned her attention to what was in the box. Brushing aside packing materials, she pulled out another squarish box, plain save for a label for a textile repair establishment somewhere in Washington DC. Curious, she pulled the lid off the top of it and peeked in, gasping in delight at what she saw. There, nestled in tissue paper, was the bright red color of her old, favorite hat, still as striking now as it was in 1946 when she purchased it.

“There you are, my beauty,” she grinned, pulling it gently out of the box. The tissue crinkled, but the hat looked sturdy and new, clearly well taken care of and restored to be just as good as before. She could have cried seeing it, a familiar piece of her old life, one she had feared left behind forever. With a delighted grin, she marched over to the large, decorative mirror over the flat’s fireplace, ignoring her frazzled looks from hours on the quinjet and gently placed the hat on her head, studying herself. There it was, a hint of the old Peggy, a hint of the new, and all of it just felt...right.

“Well, then, Agent Carter,” she murmured, grinning at her own reflection. “I guess this will do, then.”

For the first time in months she finally felt like she had come home.


	39. Chapter 39

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peggy has a conversation with Fury.

“So the object of the game is to tell three things about yourself, only two of which are true.” Ashley Carter explained the very basic rules to “Two Truths and a Lie” to the table, Peggy suspected mostly for her benefit. She didn’t want to tell her young niece that she was already well aware of this game from her years of training, so she gamely listened along with another of her nieces, one of Maggie’s daughters, Brooke.

“What if we can’t come up with a lie,” Brooke worried, glancing up and down the table filled with extended Carter cousins.

“Then just make something up,” her cousin, Mikey, quipped, earning chuckles as Brooke glared at him and tossed an orange and brown paper napkin at him.

“That’s not what I meant. I don’t know how to just lie well!”

“Then don’t play against Sharon and Aunt Peggy,” Maggie teased her daughter as she gathered plates to take to the kitchen. “The two of them are spies, that’s hardly fair.”

Peggy shot Sharon a mischievous glance, knowing it wasn’t an incorrect assessment. “I may be horrible at this lying game. You don’t actually know.”

“Fair,” Mikey agreed, pulling from a glass of amber beer. “But I’m not going to lay odds against the woman who founded SHIELD. And I know Sharon lies like a champ, lest we forget Brody Anderson.”

“Hey,” Sharon shouted, reaching a leg under the table to kick her elder brother’s shin. “What happened to sibling codes of secrecy.”

“Please, Sharon, you don’t think we didn’t know you weren’t going to Laura’s house in high school?” Her father, Harry, eyed his daughter with the same twinkling, knowing smirk Peggy's father used to employ on her when Peggy was a girl. 

Sharon only scowled, shrugging as if it didn’t matter, which clearly it did. “I thought I hid it well enough!”

“Well, enough that I didn’t know about it till Laura’s mother spilled the beans,” Harry teased.

Sitting on the other side of Peggy, Cynthia explained the small piece of family drama. “There was a boy that Sharon liked in school and wanted to date, but her father said she was too young, So she would sneak around and pretend she was at her friend’s house and meet up with him.

“Ahhh,” Peggy delighted in this small bit of family scandal. “Seeing boys on the sly! What would your grandfather say?”

“More like what would my grandmother say,” Harry replied, shooting Peggy a knowing look. “I heard a story or two about you growing up.”

Peggy wasn’t sorry about any of it. “Those are just the ones your father knew about, dear.”

A general rumble of laughter went up from the table among the Carter cousins. There were a lot of them, all adults, some married with children of their own. Said offspring were entertaining themselves in the next room over, having eaten their dinner and were now engaged in watching an animated film involving living toys. The adults now relaxed, enjoying each other's company, now very full of Cynthia’s fine cooking. Thanksgiving was not a holiday that the English ever celebrated, though Peggy was well aware of it from her time living with and serving alongside Americans. It was such a shame it wasn’t one, it was a perfectly lovely holiday, free of the mad bustle and commercialism of Christmas. In her personal time she had celebrated it last year with her friends - Howard, the Jarvises, the Commandos in town. It had been a cozy affair, but nothing like this one, sitting around Harry and Cynthia’s long table, the ruins of a well-made meal left around them, laughing at her brother’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren as they teased and joked and interrupted each other, a happy tumble of laughter and voices...a family.

In her pocket, her ever-present phone buzzed.

If there was one thing about modern living she had become disturbingly attached to, it was that item, and she found herself quickly glancing at the screen, seeing the unregistered number. She excused herself to everyone, quickly taking the call out through the kitchen and to the back deck overlooking Cynthia’s lovely garden. It was now more brown than green, fall already turning everything blustery, the leaves of their maple trees a bright, orange-red, a riot of flaming color. Peggy focused on it as she answered her phone. “This is Director Carter.”

“Sorry to disturb dinner with your family.” Fury at least sounded properly apologetic. “Hope I didn’t interrupt the pie.”

“Not at all, we were about to play ‘Two Truths and a Lie’ and see how badly Sharon and I trounced them all at it.”

“They do know you both work for SHIELD, right?”

“Yes,” she chuckled, leaning against the railing. “Did you talk to Stark?”

“Last night,” he affirmed, but not with any sort of pleasure. 

“He said no, then.” She had a feeling that would happen.

“Emphatically,” Fury grumbled, unused to anyone telling him that. “He seems to think he can handle himself just fine doing this superhero business.”

“Of course he does, no one has figured out how to stop him, yet. The minute that happens, all bets are off.” Peggy knew that Fury wouldn’t be able to sway him and she’d told her counterpart so. She had much preferred to wait till they found Steve and propose the idea jointly to them, work it out as a team, but Fury’s impatience had gotten the better of him. He made the call to approach Stark directly, thinking that by pointing out he wasn’t the only one out there trying to keep the world safe that he could perhaps convince him to be a team player. Peggy had tried to warn him that Starks didn’t like to be team players unless they were requisitioned and commanded to do so, and even then it was usually only if they found it interesting and intriguing. Fury’s bluster would get him nowhere.

“So, I suppose this means we are back at square one with him?”

“For now,” Fury rumbled, momentarily defeated but not deterred. “In the meantime, I’ve kept Romanoff on Stark’s case. I have a feeling this is all going to blow up on him sooner rather than later, and I want trusted eyes on him from a distance. She’s the right sort of asset to dangle in front of him to get close enough she can watch him like a hawk, but she has her wits about her enough to keep him dangling without getting too close. I can hear the politicians sharpening their pitchforks already and it’s better to have eyes on him and ensure he doesn’t do anything stupid than hope that we get lucky and he doesn’t.

He wasn’t wrong about that, Peggy conceded. “I am sure Romanoff will appreciate the additional weeks of employment at SI with all their employee perks, including the massages.”

“Why we don’t get those perks, I don’t know. Saving the world all the damn time, I could use a damn massage,” he groused, loudly, earning a chuckle out of Peggy. “By the way, I have a tidbit to throw your way, maybe you can sick Kam on it, do some follow up. I’ve heard some scuttlebutt through back channels and you are the only person alive I know that could actually speak into this with any authority on the subject.”

“What is it?” Her curiosity piqued, excitement tingling at the prospect of something different.

“Have you run across the name of General Thaddeus Ross yet?”

She frowned, something ringing a bell. “He’s with the Army, in their division...I don’t recall the name, it’s what they replaced the SSR with.”

“That would be him. He got his hands on a lot of things that SHIELD really wished he hadn’t gotten hold of, but we couldn’t get it out of the Army’s hands. One of those happened to be the Army’s work on Project: Rebirth.”

Her fingers tightened hard around the phone, aching as the bottom dropped out of her stomach. “The super soldiers...they’ve been trying to recreate that for years but failed. They went through all of Steve’s blood and never figured it out.”

“Didn’t stop them from looking. You ever run across the name of Dr. Bruce Banner, a former research scientist, genius on a level only slightly below that of Stark.”

She had as a matter-of-fact. “He was one of theirs.”

“And he’s out there, somewhere, and Ross is actively looking for him. I doubt he’ll catch him, Ross is an idiot who thinks with his gun, going against a man who is one of the world’s greatest minds when you catch him on a good day, and one of the most terrifying monsters ever seen when you catch him on a bad one. That said, I think if we can get to Banner at some point, offer him some help and protection if he wants it, he might make a good addition. He’s certainly interesting and brilliant enough for Tony Stark to play with.”

Peggy had actually eyed the poor doctor for some time now but had not really considered him for the sheer fact that his other side was a terrifying, uncontrollable titan who could destroy everything in his path. But Fury did have a point, if they could protect him from the Army and keep him out of their clutches, then perhaps they could provide him for him. And there was no one she knew who could have a better chance at finding that help than Tony Stark.

“I’ll set Kam on it when I’m back in the office next week. Perhaps we can connect with Banner.”

“Approach him carefully. He’s like a rabbit, you spook him and he bolts and it isn’t pretty.”

“Duly noted. Anything else?”

He hemmed for a long moment. “No, I’ll let you get back to your family. I’ll keep you posted as I hear of things from up north.”

She knew what he meant by that. Her eyes burned, briefly. “Thank you. I had hoped...but I suppose if he’s kept this long, what’s another season?”

“We’ll find him, don’t worry. You keep your head in the game with what you got.”

“You as well, Fury. Are you spending your holiday with anyone special?”

“Me? Old friends, a beach somewhere, and a tropical drink, that’s all I need.”

“Festive in your own way, then. I respect that.”

“Maybe someone there can give me a massage,” he retorted, mildly. “Happy Thanksgiving, Carter.”

“The same to you.”

She clicked off the phone as Sharon peeked her head outside of the French doors, coming out in her jeans and jumper, shivering slightly at the cool onset of the November evening. “You doing okay out here?”

Peggy nodded, holding up the phone before slipping it in her pocket. “Stark said no.”

“To Fury?” Sharon blinked, momentarily wide-eyed. “I didn’t think you could do that.”

“When you are Tony Stark, you can.” Peggy pulled the ends of her own jumper over her fingers. She’d dressed down in comfortable but tight leggings and a long, knitted top that was softer and far less itchy than any of the wool she’d had during the war. “I suspected he would do it, if nothing else out of the perversity of it. Fury didn’t know how to handle it.”

“But you did. Why not send you?”

“Impatience,” Peggy shrugged, not bothered by Fury’s faux paux, but realizing she would have made a different call. Still, it wasn’t her place to criticize another sitting director. It was hard enough to sit in the chair when she had done it, she wasn’t about to critique someone else in the role. “We’ll get him, I just have to finesse it a bit.”

“Please tell me that isn’t a double entendre,” Sharon grimaced, much to Peggy’s mild horror. 

“You do realize that it might as well be incest, correct? Tony Stark is practically a nephew, nearly as much as you or anyone else in the house is.”

“Try telling that to him,” Sharon joked, moving to lean against the rail beside her. “You are going to tell him, though, eventually? Tell him who you are?”

“Maybe,” she replied, considering. “Probably, if he will believe it. I can’t tell him about the fact he was the one to create time travel, he’d focus on nothing else if I did. Perhaps I will tell him, but not today.”

“No, not today,” Sharon agreed, nodding. “Besides, Mom’s pumpkin pie is to die for, so you better come inside or the boys will eat it all.”

“She made five of those! They couldn’t seriously go through them…”

Sharon only nodded solemnly. “Oh, yes they could. I’ve seen things, Aunt Peggy, things that would terrify you. Do not stand between a Carter man and his pumpkin pie.”

“Oh, heavens,” she sighed, wrapping an arm around Sharon’s, tugging her to the door. “Then let us go in and snag a couple of slices for ourselves before they land like locusts on them.”

“That is a good plan. I’ll run point on it.”

Their operation was a complete success, and Peggy had to admit, it was a bloody good pie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow.....
> 
> So I started this story two years ago YESTERDAY (September 1, 2018). It was all born from an idea I had regarding time travel, Scott Lang, and Peggy and it blossomed from there. I am so glad you all have enjoyed this story so much and I appreciate your support. This is my first Marvel Fanfic (though not my first one of all time by any means) and the response to it as left me floored.
> 
> These are sad times in the world in general - and for Marvel fans this week, especially. Sometimes it is hard to look on the positive side of things. I hope that through all of this insanity in 2020 my little story brought some of you joy and excitement. I love Peggy. I'm eager to see what she does in this insane scenario next.
> 
> I already have Chapter 1 of the sequel "Out of Time" written and will post that on Saturday. Look for it then. Thank you for your support.
> 
> Jenn


End file.
